Not dead yet: Intel's Battlemage G21 GPU spotted in oneAPI code update

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The first Intel Battlemage GPUs are expected in Fall.

Intel GPU progress
(Image credit: Intel)

Further proof that Intel Battlemage discrete GPU development work continues in earnest was seen over the weekend. Intel hardware enthusiast @miktdt noticed that the firm added code to oneAPI to support the upcoming Battlemage G21 GPU.

Today’s news is another nail in the coffin concerning rumors Intel may have abandoned the discrete GPU market. However, the weight of opinion is behind the firm shying away from preparing for battle in the flagship market.

Image 1 of 2
Intel oneAPI code screenshot
(Image credit: Future)

The above-referenced G21 code comes from Intel’s LLVM project, which is published and updated on GitHub. In the first image, you can see one of several mentions of Intel’s “BMG_G21.” Moreover, the “Battlemage G21 Intel graphics architecture” is specifically mentioned in the oneAPI device targets list (slide 2).

Evidence from previous leaks, such as a shipping manifest that we reported on in late March, suggests that Intel is limiting Battlemage to two discrete GPUs: the G21, and the G10. These GPUs were presumably transiting between Intel R&D labs.

The flow of recent leaks hints that the mid-to-high-end G21 will be behind the first Intel Battlemage products to launch. There are fewer mentions of G10 in shipping manifests, and it is still absent from the headlining GitHub code.

We think Intel isn’t hyping up Battlemage ahead of release for two main reasons. Firstly, it learned lessons from the Alchemist launch where expectations were not properly managed. Secondly, for whatever reasons its biggest GPU, the G21 is only designed to fuel mid-range mass-market style graphics cards. With this in mind, we will underline expectations that Battlemage isn’t going to go toe-to-toe with the best of the Nvidia Blackwell RTX 50 products, or AMD RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 8000 products. Nevertheless, we remain eager to welcome Battlemage to the market.

(Image credit: Intel)

Intel’s plans regarding Battlemage launch timings also currently lack clarity – to those from the outside trying to look in. Reports from Embedded World signaled that the first Battlemage products may be launched in Fall. This would have them on the market ahead of the holiday season, and to achieve a solid presence for these shoppers Battlemage GPU-based products should be available in November at the latest.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    I wanted to buy an Alchemist A770 to fiddle around with it for compute. However, I was put off by its high idle power and instead made due with the iGPU. I really hope Battlemage sorts out this problem and then I'm very likely to buy one.
    Reply
  • Secondly, for whatever reasons its biggest GPU, the G21 is only designed to fuel mid-range mass-market style graphics cards. With this in mind, we will underline expectations that Battlemage isn’t going to go toe-to-toe with the best of the Nvidia Blackwell RTX 50 products, or AMD RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 8000 products.

    They don't HAVE to go toe-to-toe with AMD or Nvidia for that matter. Even AMD isn't trying to compete with Nvidia at least on high-end GPU market, which the RTX 50 flagship series would be capturing.

    Btw, Battlemage-G10 will be the bigger silicon, with Battlemage-G21 as the smaller chip aimed at entry-level systems.

    If Intel can release highly competitive mainstream/mid-range "gaming" GPUs within a reasonable budget, then they can grab a lot of market share, unlike Alchemist which was a bit late for the party. Despite that, it's impressive to witness how much effort Intel's driver team has done in the past one year or so.

    Current Alchemist A-series ARC discrete GPUs have seen a pretty decent performance uplift in most of the latest AAA/AA games, if not all. We just need more mainstream GPUs in a price bracket that a lot of gamers can afford, and not some highly expensive or a HALO product (thinks of RTX 5090 :sneaky:) .

    The Arc A770 which sports a 16GB VRAM buffer/capacity is still considered a pretty decent gaming GPU based on it's price/performance ratio.

    I also look forward to an update on the XeSS up-scaling tech as well, with new iterations, along with the rumored XeSS "ExtraSS" tech, which could be a frame generation technique, aka based on "Frame Extrapolation" instead of "Frame Interpolation".

    Based on Intel's paper, Extrapolation method uses information beyond the bounds of the input sample to produce an approximation of the frame.

    Although, Extrapolation might produce less reliable results, and add more artifacts, but we have seen similar issues with interpolation as well, so with a few tweaks and optimizations, XeSS "ExtraSS" could be a middle ground in offering good quality with higher FPS.

    So I'm curious to learn how this pans out, and see this implement in future games as well, assuming Intel is going for this tech, and it is feasible to use. Nothing is official yet though.

    https://asia.siggraph.org/2023/presentation/?id=papers_744&sess=sess155
    Slight Off-topic:
    BTW, the research paper itself also highlights the differences between Interpolation and Extrapolation, which seems obvious.

    While Frame Interpolation generates better results, it also introduces higher latency when generating frames which is why NVIDIA and AMD have latency-reducing technologies such as Reflex and Anti-Lag required to deliver a smooth frame-generation experience.

    Extrapolation doesn't produce very high latency, but has difficulties due to lacking key information to produce a new frame.

    But the paper claims that ExtraSS aims to solve this by using a new "warping" method that can help produce better quality vs the previous frame generation methods and with lower latencies.

    More info can be found here::

    https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3610548.3618224
    Reply
  • 35below0
    Metal Messiah. said:
    They don't HAVE to go toe-to-toe with AMD or Nvidia for that matter. Even AMD isn't trying to compete with Nvidia at least on high-end GPU market, which the RTX 50 flagship series would be capturing.
    This is true. Most of the GPUs sold are entry to mid tier. I think EVGA reported they lost money on 3090 and 3080 cards. The xx60 and xx50 market is the lucrative one.

    One other thing Intel have to do is bribe slap Valve so they're accurately represented in the Hardware Survey.
    It's unimportant buuut, should Intel rocket up the chart, it will make headlines.
    Reply
  • Pierce2623
    Honestly if they can hit 4070 performance at like $300, I’ll buy them for my friends that don’t have a GPU. The a750 might’ve sucked overall but not for $180 it didn’t.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    The old guesswork was 4070 like performance, but that was well before these latest batch of driver improvements. That was done by looking at relative performance and GPU size.

    Leaks so far only reveal something akin to a A580 class GPU with 24 Xe cores, and the expected 64 Xe core G20 GPU hasn't been spotted anywhere.

    Still should be just as interesting with performance being all over the place. Pretty sure I am going to switch to it just for fun, and see about water cooling for no reason.
    Reply
  • Secondly, for whatever reasons its biggest GPU, the G21 is only designed to fuel mid-range mass-market style graphics cards.

    Uh ? To clear up any confusion, the Battlemage-G10 will be the bigger silicon, with Battlemage-G21 being the smaller chip aimed at entry-level systems.

    The Battlemage BMG-G10 should be the successor to the Alchemist ACM-G10 which currently powers the Arc A770 and Arc A750 GPUs.

    BMG-G10, Enthusiast Grade offering, <225W SKU.

    While the BMG-G21 could be a mid-tier performance SKU with <150W TDP.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    Whatever is going on with Battlemage, they probably had to pivot their original plans when AI took off.
    I think AMD had this issue as well, assuming accuracy of the rumors about weird die numbering and the cancellation of high end MMU cards. Although I think it may be more of a delay than a cancellation to rework how their AI works, and the first wave/midrange will probably be missing those improvements.
    We might get a couple stop-gap cards this year, in an effort to better compete against Nvidia next year... or maybe they'll crunch and rush out some buggy/broken/unfinished products.

    Hopefully both brands get big announcements at Computex in a few weeks. If Intel doesn't use that opportunity to present a solid roadmap, then I doubt Battlemage will happen this year.
    Reply
  • There are already tools which were being used for verification and testing purposes for Battlemage discrete GPUs though.

    Two test tools for Battlemage GPUs are listed on the Intel DesigninTools webpage. BGA2362-BMG-X2 and the BGA2727-BMG-X3-6CH (this link is currently not working).

    The second chip is of a slightly bigger package size than the top Alchemist chip. The X2 tool features a 2362 BGA array, and the X3 tool feature a 2727 BGA array.

    So I'm gonna assume that the bigger Batlemage die might come in the 2727 array, though this is just speculation on my part.

    https://i.imgur.com/f7I943v.png
    https://i.imgur.com/lSFmHy2.png
    Reply
  • SSGBryan
    If the top Battlemage die delivers 4070ti performance for 300 - 400USD, it's a no brainer purchase.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    As long as the RTX 5060 or 8600XT doesn't do it for about the same.
    Reply