News Intel reportedly plans to launch Arc 'Battlemage' GPUs before the holidays — Second-gen Arc prepares for takeoff this fall

[Admin]

Intel wants to strategically launch its next-generation Arc 'Battlemage' GPUs ahead of the holiday season this fall. It's a crucial period for sales, and could tie in with new CPUs and platforms as well.

Intel reportedly plans to launch Arc 'Battlemage' GPUs before the holidays — Second-gen Arc prepares for takeoff this fall : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

I seen their driver issues are much better than launchso I "might" give these a try assuming they can be aroudn a 4060/4070 as I do need to replace a machines 1060 soemtime and really dont want to give nvidia more $.

 

[Crazyy8]

If they can get better performance than my RTX 4060 TI 16GB for more than $100-$150 less, I'm sold.

 

[Eximo]

If the original rumors are true and the top card can do 4070 like performance but with 16GB memory, it will be quite comparable to the 7800XT which is $500.

A770 launched at $350, but they knew they were in a bad position. So $500 launch price would be somewhat anemic in terms of pricing, but also maybe not possible given the size the B770 chip may have to be. Even with a node shrink to match Nvidia and AMD it may be cost prohibitive to sell it for less than like $600.

7800XT 346 mm TSMC N5/N6
A770 406 mm TSMC N6
4070 294.5 mm TSMC N4

 

[thisisaname]

If the original rumors are true and the top card can do 4070 like performance but with 16GB memory, it will be quite comparable to the 7800XT which is $500.

A770 launched at $350, but they knew they were in a bad position. So $500 launch price would be somewhat anemic in terms of pricing, but also maybe not possible given the size the B770 chip may have to be. Even with a node shrink to match Nvidia and AMD it may be cost prohibitive to sell it for less than like $600.

7800XT 346 mm TSMC N5/N6
A770 406 mm TSMC N6
4070 294.5 mm TSMC N4

If it matches the 4070 and it sold for $600 there is little reason not to buy a 4070 other than it is not Nvidia?

 

[aberkae]

I seen their driver issues are much better than launchso I "might" give these a try assuming they can be aroudn a 4060/4070 as I do need to replace a machines 1060 soemtime and really dont want to give nvidia more $.

Intel's software in drivers and Xess is improving at a faster rate than AMD's. So there is hope for them especially when AMD is playing stagnation love game with Nvidia. AMD is fortifying its position in the midrange with rdna 4 and PlayStation 5pro ( rumored). While Nvidia will likely to swell gpu pricing even further with Blackwell. The later part of gpu swelling in prices will benefit them with rdna 5 by fillingin the gap.

 

[Eximo]

If it matches the 4070 and it sold for $600 there is little reason not to buy a 4070 other than it is not Nvidia?

That is why the size of the chip matters a lot. If it is anywhere close to the size of the 4070 then it will cost roughly the same to produce. 4070 has already dropped to around $540.

Right now the A770 cost a lot to make and was sold at probably barely a profit if not a loss.

For the 4070 that is roughly a 300mm squared. A 300mm TSMC wafer would pump out 942 chips at 100% yields. TSMC made recent claims to aim for 80% yields. Samsung is noted as saying they currently do about 60% yield on their best node. TSMC is said to be charging around $20,000 for a wafer (up to as much as $25,000). So about $36 a chip with 75%.

Nvidia is known for about a 60% profit margin overall so we can assume they sell the GPUs at roughly $60-100, 16GB GDDR6 memory is about $55. Then we need a PCB and Heatsink, assembly, packaging, marketing and shipping, plus the retailed profit margin. So call it maybe $300 minimum to get one to a store. Which accords somewhat well with the A770 sold at zero profit or a small loss being a bigger chip on a slightly older node.

So that $400 price point is possible, but then you have to ask what is in it for Intel, since they aren't a huge part of this profit chain, only the mark up they have to pass along to their board partners. Basically, they have to start turning a profit at some point. Maybe they can afford to battle at the low end another generation, but low prices only work with wide adoption.

 

[jlake3]

Hmmm... I'll believe it when I see it.

Machine-translating the linked article, they say "'Before Black Friday' is the goal", and Intel's official line is "new series would be 'hopefully' before the CES 2025 and thus in 2024" (Emphasis theirs). That's more of a noncommittal aspiration than a roadmap.

Neither Battlemage-G10 nor Battlemage-G21 GPUs are finalized yet, as G21 is rumored to be in the pre-qualification stage. This stage involves testing the chip's functionality, reliability, and performance, but it does not guarantee readiness for mass production.

Given that the silicon is in pre-qualification and another rumor I'd heard was that as of a month or two ago AIBs haven't been briefed at all on what to expect with Battlemage, it seems unlikely there's going to be a high-volume retail launch by Black Friday. To get chip design completed and qualified, boards designed, boards validated, tooling set up, chips fabricated, chips sent to board partners, boards assembled, finished cards shipped by boat, and distributed to retailers in that time seems like it's going to need everything to go perfect.

Might be a paper launch, might be very low volume of air-shipped cards, might be reference design only, or might be more than one of the above, but I would be really wary of something being off with a launch before CES.

 

[why_wolf]

I guess will see. But until Intel can start spiting out GPU chips at their own fabs instead of being reliant on TSMC then they are stuck with the same economic factors that AMD & Nvidia face. So not as much room to offer lower prices other than taking smaller margins, which Intel does not like. They want those huge Nvidia margins.

But if they release new cards and the pricing structure just follows what AMD does (marginally cheaper than the equivalent Nvidia card) than sales will be anemic unless AMD leaves a big hole in the market for Intel to scoot through. Nvidia of course will be sailing high with some new xx90 tier card at the opening so not direct competition to the lower tier cards Intel is making.

All this assumes of course that Battlemage can achieve at least 4xxx series performance without being some 1000watt factory overclocked monstrosity.

 

[thisisaname]

That is why the size of the chip matters a lot. If it is anywhere close to the size of the 4070 then it will cost roughly the same to produce. 4070 has already dropped to around $540.

Right now the A770 cost a lot to make and was sold at probably barely a profit if not a loss.

For the 4070 that is roughly a 300mm squared. A 300mm TSMC wafer would pump out 942 chips at 100% yields. TSMC made recent claims to aim for 80% yields. Samsung is noted as saying they currently do about 60% yield on their best node. TSMC is said to be charging around $20,000 for a wafer (up to as much as $25,000). So about $36 a chip with 75%.

Nvidia is known for about a 60% profit margin overall so we can assume they sell the GPUs at roughly $60-100, 16GB GDDR6 memory is about $55. Then we need a PCB and Heatsink, assembly, packaging, marketing and shipping, plus the retailed profit margin. So call it maybe $300 minimum to get one to a store. Which accords somewhat well with the A770 sold at zero profit or a small loss being a bigger chip on a slightly older node.

So that $400 price point is possible, but then you have to ask what is in it for Intel, since they aren't a huge part of this profit chain, only the mark up they have to pass along to their board partners. Basically, they have to start turning a profit at some point. Maybe they can afford to battle at the low end another generation, but low prices only work with wide adoption.

Nicely put, any idea on how much Intel would charge itself if it could make it's own chips?

The mid to low end is a bad place to make profits, they need to be able to compete at the 4090 ( or better yet Nvidia's next generation top end card) level to pick up some sweet sweet profits.

 

[Ogotai]

Intel's software in drivers and Xess is improving at a faster rate than AMD's

of course they are, the drivers still have so much more to improve then amd or nvidia's

just like with arc, the drivers will make or break battlemage.

 

[aberkae]

of course they are, the drivers still have so much more to improve then amd or nvidia's

just like with arc, the drivers will make or break battlemage.

True but what's AMD'S excuse on why Xess is subjectively superior according to the press tech hmm? I mean even ps5 pro is using proprietary PSSR ai upscaler. Also seems like AMD is going to give another round of free advertisements for Nvidia when showing of its Zen5 cpus forcing tech reviewers to use Blackwell 5090 to show off maximum gains; just like this generation with 7800X3D and 4090s are used because AMD has no crown. Sure we can make fun of Intel but I'll circle back to my original statement there is hope of a silver lining if Intel indeed succeeds with Battlemage. A much needed competitor in the gpu space. Please don't check mate yourself again! or do!

 

[das_stig]

Intel for once could be looking ahead, Alchemist a stepping stone to Battlemage and then base the next gen on a die shrink+tweaks+stable drivers, once you have that, target the low/medium market and take sales from NV/AMD with a AIO solution for vendors. Remember the old IntelHD gpus sucked for anything but basic work, but Intel sold millions and millions, profit somewhere along the line, even if not in GPU division.

 

[Eximo]

Well that is true. Intel can still leverage their CPU sales to force OEMs into buying them. They did that a little with Arc, but it didn't make much of a impact.

 

[parkerthon]

of course they are, the drivers still have so much more to improve then amd or nvidia's

just like with arc, the drivers will make or break battlemage.

I just don’t know about the drivers being that big of a deal. They need to close the gap in price/performance. They also need to flex a higher performance card that earns them some visibility with consumers. Right now they are running a very very distant 3rd out of 3 places. The drivers only matter if people are actually buying their cards. Running a lap behind the competition isn’t where they want to be.

To be clear, I hope they catch up. I want Intel to compete and help diversify this segment of the chip market. They are just very very far behind in gpu tech and I worry a big old complacent company like Intel even has it in them to disrupt anything these days.

 

[TerryLaze]

I just don’t know about the drivers being that big of a deal. They need to close the gap in price/performance. They also need to flex a higher performance card that earns them some visibility with consumers. Right now they are running a very very distant 3rd out of 3 places. The drivers only matter if people are actually buying their cards. Running a lap behind the competition isn’t where they want to be.

To be clear, I hope they catch up. I want Intel to compete and help diversify this segment of the chip market. They are just very very far behind in gpu tech and I worry a big old complacent company like Intel even has it in them to disrupt anything these days.

The only reason they are behind is because of the drivers.
Their GPUs use the same tech as the others (all are on tsmc currently) and in general have more transistors, so if the drivers would run perfectly their cards would have higher performance than the other two.
If the drivers were good people would buy their GPUs because their cards would be better than the others.

 

[Ogotai]

Their GPUs use the same tech as the others (all are on tsmc currently) and in general have more transistors, so if the drivers would run perfectly their cards would have higher performance than the other two.
If the drivers were good people would buy their GPUs because their cards would be better than the others

umn yea ok sure. i doubt these cards would best a 4090, or even a 7900XTX. at best, maybe a low end 4070...

nice complete speculation there, terry... to bad there is no way you could remotely back any of this post up

 

[TerryLaze]

umn yea ok sure. i doubt these cards would best a 4090, or even a 7900XTX. at best, maybe a low end 4070...

nice complete speculation there, terry... to bad there is no way you could remotely back any of this post up

New Intel Arc specs reveal an advantage over AMD and Nvidia | Digital Trends

Intel Arc's transistor count and die size have been confirmed. It seems that Intel's discrete GPU is bigger than Nvidia's GA104 die.

www.digitaltrends.com

According to HardwareUnboxed, the Intel ACM-G10 is a 406 mm² die with 21.7 billion transistors. VideoCardz compared these numbers to those of the AMD Navi 22 GPU and the Nvidia GA104 GPU, both of which are Intel’s competitors for this graphics card. In both cases, Intel wins in terms of the number of transistors and die size: Navi 22 measures 336 mm² and has 17.2 billion transistors, while Nvidia GA104 has a 392 mm² die size with 17.4 billion transistors. This means that the Intel ACM-G10 GPU has a higher transistor density than its competitors, beating Nvidia by 20% and AMD by 6%.

 

[NedSmelly]

I guess will see. But until Intel can start spiting out GPU chips at their own fabs instead of being reliant on TSMC then they are stuck with the same economic factors that AMD & Nvidia face.
All this assumes of course that Battlemage can achieve at least 4xxx series performance without being some 1000watt factory overclocked monstrosity.

This. No one ever seems to talk about this fact, that these dies are literally popping off the same fab at TSMC as their competitors. Pricing will be dependent on which restaurant and karaoke bar the Intel reps took the TSMC team to when negotiating the deal for fab capacity.

And yes Battlemage really needs to step up power efficiency to be competitive, regardless of how refined they get the drivers.

 

[Ogotai]

New Intel Arc specs reveal an advantage over AMD and Nvidia | Digital Trends

Intel Arc's transistor count and die size have been confirmed. It seems that Intel's discrete GPU is bigger than Nvidia's GA104 die.

www.digitaltrends.com

and this proves what, exactly ? that only shows intel uses more transistors, and there for has a bigger gpu. big whoop. arc ( or battle mage for that matter ) could have 3x as many transistors then nvidia or amd, and the performance could still be worse. cause the drivers still suck. a couple of people at work tried Arc, and took them back 3 days or less. cause the drivers sucked, and the performance was worse then what they had.

as i said, the drivers for battlemage will make or break it, just like it did for arc. i know a few who still wont touch arc, and at this point, wont touch, or are even interested in battlemage

 

[TerryLaze]

and the performance could still be worse. cause the drivers still suck.

That's what I said as well, did you forget already?!

so if the drivers would run perfectly

 

[renz496]

If the original rumors are true and the top card can do 4070 like performance but with 16GB memory, it will be quite comparable to the 7800XT which is $500.

A770 launched at $350, but they knew they were in a bad position. So $500 launch price would be somewhat anemic in terms of pricing, but also maybe not possible given the size the B770 chip may have to be. Even with a node shrink to match Nvidia and AMD it may be cost prohibitive to sell it for less than like $600.

7800XT 346 mm TSMC N5/N6
A770 406 mm TSMC N6
4070 294.5 mm TSMC N4

nvidia use 5nm the same as AMD. specifically 5nm 4N (the 4N means "for nvidia"). people debate about this 5nm vs 4nm before and i think nvidia came out clarifying that Ada use TSMC 5nm not TSMC 4nm process which another different process.

 

[renz496]

That is why the size of the chip matters a lot. If it is anywhere close to the size of the 4070 then it will cost roughly the same to produce. 4070 has already dropped to around $540.

Right now the A770 cost a lot to make and was sold at probably barely a profit if not a loss.

For the 4070 that is roughly a 300mm squared. A 300mm TSMC wafer would pump out 942 chips at 100% yields. TSMC made recent claims to aim for 80% yields. Samsung is noted as saying they currently do about 60% yield on their best node. TSMC is said to be charging around $20,000 for a wafer (up to as much as $25,000). So about $36 a chip with 75%.

Nvidia is known for about a 60% profit margin overall so we can assume they sell the GPUs at roughly $60-100, 16GB GDDR6 memory is about $55. Then we need a PCB and Heatsink, assembly, packaging, marketing and shipping, plus the retailed profit margin. So call it maybe $300 minimum to get one to a store. Which accords somewhat well with the A770 sold at zero profit or a small loss being a bigger chip on a slightly older node.

So that $400 price point is possible, but then you have to ask what is in it for Intel, since they aren't a huge part of this profit chain, only the mark up they have to pass along to their board partners. Basically, they have to start turning a profit at some point. Maybe they can afford to battle at the low end another generation, but low prices only work with wide adoption.

this. some people think intel can easily come up with something as fast as 4080 and only charge $500 to "destroy" nvidia.

 

[KyaraM]

and this proves what, exactly ? that only shows intel uses more transistors, and there for has a bigger gpu. big whoop. arc ( or battle mage for that matter ) could have 3x as many transistors then nvidia or amd, and the performance could still be worse. cause the drivers still suck. a couple of people at work tried Arc, and took them back 3 days or less. cause the drivers sucked, and the performance was worse then what they had.

as i said, the drivers for battlemage will make or break it, just like it did for arc. i know a few who still wont touch arc, and at this point, wont touch, or are even interested in battlemage

That's quite literally what Terry said - they have more transistors, but worse drivers than the competition in their weight class, which is why they are behind - so what is even your problem? You are not just moving the goalposts here, you are also making a complete 180 from your last imlication... especially since nobody but you talked about the 7900XTX and 4090.