Intel Arc Battlemage GPUs are likely delayed and nerfed

Issues aren’t trying good for Intel Arc Battlemage GPUs proper now, and their future doesn’t appear significantly better both. Whereas Intel stays principally silent on the way forward for its graphics cards, rumors are filling the void with whispers of delays and spec nerfs.

Simply over a 12 months because the first Intel Arc card emerged on the scene, the A380, staff blue continues to be struggling to correctly observe by means of on its introduced Alchemist lineup. Whereas the corporate did handle to lastly get the A770 and A750 out the door after lacking their preliminary summer time launch window, the A580 continues to be MIA. Now, it appears to be like as if Intel won’t release a new graphics card every year, because it initially aimed to take action.

In keeping with Moore’s Regulation Is Lifeless, their sources point out that Battlemage is having “tons of points to the purpose that its future may be very unsure.” Whereas it does seem that Intel nonetheless plans to launch new Arc playing cards, they’ll neither be well timed nor notably highly effective.

The flagship Battlemage pixel pusher was apparently slated to tackle the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 in its preliminary configuration, but it surely’s since been “nerfed a number of instances” to the purpose that it’s now “much less bold than Alchemist.”

Now, if the graphics card ever sees the sunshine of day, it appears to be like as if it’ll rock 448 Execution Items (EU), a 256-bit reminiscence bus, and 16GB of GDDR6X VRAM. For context, that’s fewer EUs than the Arc A770, with the identical bus width, and barely extra superior VRAM.

A possible Intel Arc Battlemage launch date now appears to be like set for a while “late Q2 2024”, as a greatest case state of affairs. That mentioned, if issues proceed behind the scenes, a launch in “2H appears probably.”

Right here’s hoping that Intel Arc Battlemage GPUs can come again swinging, as we will solely profit from extra viable competitors within the graphics card market. Maybe the upcoming Raptor Lake refresh will see staff blue take the gaming CPU crown from AMD, providing it a second wind, however I may simply be optimistic right here.