Intel's next gen Battlemage GPUs are up and running in its labs, and work on its next-next generation Celestial architecture is well underway
After the less than perfect launch of Intel's first generation Arc Alchemist graphics cards, work on the second generation Xe2 Battlemage architecture appears to be coming along nicely. That's according to comments made during an interview at CES 2024 by Tom Petersen, a current Intel Fellow.
The interview was conducted by PC World. Petersen revealed that Battlemage is up and running in Intel's labs, with development shifting to the software side of things. The hardware team has already shifted its focus to the third generation Celestial architecture.
In a quote from the PC World interview, Petersen says: «It's coming, I am excited about it, and all our engineers, you know how they are constantly doing their engineering things. I'd say about 30% of our engineers are working on Battlemage, mostly on the software side because our hardware team is on the next thing (Celestial). So, think about it as the Battlemage has already has its first silicon in the labs which is very exciting and there's more good news coming which I can't talk about right now. We hope we are going to see it before CES '25.»
Petersen is known for his openness and candor, and this is a good indicator that the first Battlemage cards are on track for a 2024 launch.
Speculating on how Battlemage cards will perform is pretty much guesswork with so many months to go before they launch. We can expect a new memory subsystem, improved ray tracing and updated machine learning features. Petersen also talked about game-enabled AI, mentioning features such as AI-assisted character animations and augmentation.
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