Intel says Arc Xe4 Druid GPUs are already in the works — Software optimization is the only remaining step for Xe3 Celestial as it approaches launch with Panther Lake

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Arc still has plenty of gas left in the tank.

Intel GPU
(Image credit: Intel)

The announcement of Battlemage two days prior refuted industry-wide rumors that Intel was planning to sunset discrete Arc GPUs. After the fact, enthusiasts are already speculating about the next generation, namely Celestial. Tom Peterson from Intel AKA "TAP" joined The Full Nerd Podcast yesterday and confirmed that Arc isn't going anywhere - anytime soon with Celestial Xe3 "baked" on the architectural level and hardware teams already working on next-next-gen Xe4 Druid GPUs.

Cutting off the graphics division never made sense as that'd make Intel's mobile offerings highly uncompetitive compared to AMD, and even Snapdragon now. This isn't just a rhetorical statement since Intel's Lunar Lake can pull ahead of AMD's Strix Point offerings in gaming - putting Intel on top of the PC iGPU leaderboard after a very long time.

"Our IP, that's kind of called Xe3 which is the one after Xe2 - that's pretty much baked. So the software teams have a lot of work to do on Xe3. The hardware teams are off on to the next thing (Xe4)"

Tom Peterson at The Full Nerd Podcast

Tom Peterson confirms that Intel has laid the hardware-level groundwork for Celestial which likely includes architectural layouts and prototypes. That's sort of expected since Intel might reveal Panther Lake (with a Celestial-based iGPU) at Computex 2025 which is just five to six months away. The wording makes it pretty evident that Xe3's design is nearing completion and has been handed over to the software team for driver support and other optimizations.

The hardware team has been designated to the "next-thing" which most probably refers to Druid or Xe4 GPUs. As far as Intel's CPU lineup goes, Druid might be featured on Nova Lake but that's speculation because Intel hasn't formally announced a successor to Panther Lake. Tom mentions that Arc GPUs have a development lifecycle that may sometimes exceed one year so Celestial - at least on desktop - will probably not hit shelves until 2026.

There is still no official confirmation from Intel regarding faster Battlemage GPUs - namely the B750 and B770. Word on the street is that these GPUs might have been axed and that makes sense because any Intel GPU in the $350+ price bracket will struggle against next-gen offerings from Nvidia and AMD - due to consumer mindshare and market sentiment.

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Hassam Nasir
Hassam Nasir
Contributing Writer

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    The article said:
    There is still no official confirmation from Intel regarding faster Battlemage GPUs - namely the B750 and B770.
    Unless Intel, themselves, are still undecided about whether to launch it, I think it's a mistake not to be transparent about this. Some would-be buyers of B580 might be holding back to see if 700-series models are launched.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    It was pretty obvious that the Celestial hardware was already pretty much done and Intel isn't going to stop developing integrated graphics. While it's always good to have official confirmation it was unsurprising.

    I think the most interesting thing Tom said in that podcast was actually that Intel wants a 1 year cadence on graphics cores. Obviously from an integrated standpoint this makes sense as Intel releases new CPUs every year. I don't think releasing a full stack of SKUs in discrete every year makes sense though especially given how expensive video cards have become. To have that be viable they would need very precise sales data and given they're the new player in the market I don't think that's possible. Running out of a SKU that turns out unexpectedly popular could be almost as bad as cards sitting on shelves if new GPU cores were constantly on the horizon.

    At the same time this could be a very real competitive advantage in the low-mid range segment. If Intel ends up turning out yearly increasing performance in the $200-300 range they'll likely sell every card they make for this segment.

    As for future Battlemage SKUs I feel the same as bit_user unless there's a good reason to be keeping it to themselves Intel needs to indicate whether or not a higher end model is coming. CES seems like the time for video card announcements so even if they're not going to give performance numbers this would be the time to yay/nay on whether there will be something coming.
    Reply
  • jlake3
    thestryker said:
    As for future Battlemage SKUs I feel the same as bit_user unless there's a good reason to be keeping it to themselves Intel needs to indicate whether or not a higher end model is coming. CES seems like the time for video card announcements so even if they're not going to give performance numbers this would be the time to yay/nay on whether there will be something coming.
    It depends on which leakers you believe, but the rumors I'd heard was that as of November, BCM-G31 had not yet taped out. The source said that B580 had been held back so that they could launch it closer to B770, but then B580 had to launch so that they could meet the 2024 roadmap and now it doesn't look like they will be launching close. What was considered "close" was never defined.

    The source and the leaker both seemed to believe that Intel had come too far and invested too cancel BCM-G31 now, but the source said some people internally have a feeling it's doomed... and that was before Pat got shown the door.

    So it sounds like Intel may not have made the final decision themselves on if a higher end model sees the light of day or not?
    Reply
  • thestryker
    jlake3 said:
    So it sounds like Intel may not have made the final decision themselves on if a higher end model sees the light of day or not?
    There was a leak this week that cited volume G31 shipping manifests and R&D shipping of Celestial parts. I'd be surprised if they haven't already made up their minds, but for sure they'd know by CES assuming this is accurate information.
    Reply
  • Florida Man
    thestryker said:
    It was pretty obvious that the Celestial hardware was already pretty much done and Intel isn't going to stop developing integrated graphics. While it's always good to have official confirmation it was unsurprising.

    I think the most interesting thing Tom said in that podcast was actually that Intel wants a 1 year cadence on graphics cores. Obviously from an integrated standpoint this makes sense as Intel releases new CPUs every year. I don't think releasing a full stack of SKUs in discrete every year makes sense though especially given how expensive video cards have become. To have that be viable they would need very precise sales data and given they're the new player in the market I don't think that's possible. Running out of a SKU that turns out unexpectedly popular could be almost as bad as cards sitting on shelves if new GPU cores were constantly on the horizon.

    At the same time this could be a very real competitive advantage in the low-mid range segment. If Intel ends up turning out yearly increasing performance in the $200-300 range they'll likely sell every card they make for this segment.

    As for future Battlemage SKUs I feel the same as bit_user unless there's a good reason to be keeping it to themselves Intel needs to indicate whether or not a higher end model is coming. CES seems like the time for video card announcements so even if they're not going to give performance numbers this would be the time to yay/nay on whether there will be something coming.
    Tik Tok approach but for GPUs? 😂
    Reply