Intel is 'confident' about next-gen Arc Celestial GPUs following Battlemage's success
Intel recently launched the first discrete graphics card in the Battlemage generation, the Arc B580, late last year. It was generally well received, even though we had our qualms with its performance in a handful of titles in testing. Well, the good news is Intel is now feeling pretty good about its next GPU generation, codename Celestial, too.
I had a chance to sit down for a roundtable with Jim Johnson, SVP of Intel's Client Computing Group and GM, Client Business Group, at the show, along with a handful of fellow journalists.
I asked Johnson: «Are you now more hopeful for the third generation [of Arc] than you were since Battlemage's launch?»
Johnson replied: «I wouldn't use the word hopeful, I would say confident.»
«We now have the discrete card and the software that is required to make it perform, our confidence was high enough we launched it integrated with Lunar Lake before we launched it as a discrete product. And so it's an implementation choice, whether we go discrete first or integrated first,» Johnson said
For the Xe2 architecture launched, i.e. the architecture behind Battlemage, Intel opted to go integrated first. The GPU inside Lunar Lake is also powered by Xe2, and Intel said prior to that launch that this decision was intended to help it work out the kinks in the software with Lunar Lake before the big chips arrived inside discrete cards.
Plus, any work on this architecture will feed into the next. Working from a more robust foundation will help out big time in developing future hardware.
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While we've had our reservations about Battlemage, due to some driver issues with games in our benchmarking suite, including Homeworld 3, largely these cards have been seen to be a big improvement on Alchemist. So, generally, many would say this strategy worked. Intel certainly sees it that way.
«It's really about the software and gaming developers and our drivers
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