Intel’s Upcoming Battlemage GPUs Will Not Feature Add-in Cards, Leak Suggests
This year, the Xe2–HPG Battlemage GPU architecture will be released, following in the footsteps of Xe-HPG Alchemist. There has been a lot of speculation about the specs, but everyone seems to agree that there will be a significant improvement to the GPU and its functions. With a planned release in 2024, Intel has already teased the BCM-10 GPU in their labs.
A new low-power CPU series called Lunar Lake will also have the Battlemage architecture. Here, the CPU will get a tiny tile based on Battlemage’s GPU, but it won’t be able to hold a candle to the dedicated GPU.
Intel has no plans to release Battlemage as an add-on video card for mobile devices at this time, according to MLID, who found the information in a PowerPoint from December 11, 2023. Keep in mind that the presence of add-on video cards proves, in the end, that there is no Battlemage mobile—just that separate PCBs with dedicated GPUs are not in the cards’ future.
These days, most laptop manufacturers solder the graphics processing unit (GPU) straight to the motherboard, while add-in cards (based on MXM or PCle boards are progressively going away). The MXM form factor is no longer used by even the most powerful gaming laptops. This is all because of the efforts to reduce the size and improve cooling efficiency.
Even while the Intel Arc A770M didn’t do well on laptops, it was a smash hit on mini-PCs like Intel’s own NUC 12 Serpent Canyon. Even after the Alchemist rebranded as the Arc A730M for a few product releases, the majority of laptops still had the graphics processing unit (GPU) soldered to the motherboard.
Even if Intel doesn’t plan to release a laptop add-in card with a Battlemage GPU, such systems will still be manufactured, however they will be soldered directly to the board. MLID sources report that several references to previously existing mobile Battlemage are now absent. It could be a sign that the mobile debut won’t be as big as anticipated. Perhaps suggesting that the mobile launch’s breadth will be more limited than initially anticipated.
Along with its dual-slot configuration, full height, and 8-inch length, the Battlemage desktop GPU specs are shown on the leaked slide. Above all else, it verifies that desktop add-in cards are indeed going to be able to use PCIe Gen5.0 x16. The release of “Druid” is now expected to take place no earlier than late 2027, and “Celestial” has been pushed back to mid-2026, according to MLID.
Source: Moore’s Law is Dead
