Skip to main content

Intel Battlemage is almost here, but the wait isn’t over

Intel Arc A770 GPU installed in a test bench.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

After weeks of rumors, it’s finally a fact: Intel Arc Battlemage is on the imminent horizon, and the company is set to announce its next-gen GPUs on December 3. However, according to leaks, we’re not getting the full scope of Intel Battlemage just yet. In fact, it may be a long time before we see Battlemage rank among the best graphics cards.

It’s been a quiet year for Intel’s discrete graphics department, but the last few weeks have been filled with leaks, and now, Intel itself confirms that we’re getting some sort of an announcement tomorrow. It’s unclear what exactly is being announced, other than the fact that it’s Battlemage.

Recommended Videos

The question now is, how much of the lineup will make an appearance during this initial announcement?

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

Happy December! It’s time to B merry🎄See you on December 3rd at 9am ET on https://t.co/WSCIoxfKtY

PT: 6:00 AM
CET: 3:00 PM
JST: 11:00 PM
AET: 12:00 AM (Dec 4th) pic.twitter.com/DrZN4hNE1z

— Intel Gaming (@IntelGaming) December 1, 2024

As usual, leakers supply information where companies are keeping it close to their chests, and according to Benchlife, we’re not going to see the full scope of Battlemage tomorrow. In fact, one of the GPUs might come in very late compared to the initial lineup.

The card in question is the flagship GPU, the G31. Benchlife, as well as other leakers, claim that Intel may not launch its top GPU alongside the rumored B580 tomorrow, and the graphics card is said to not hit the market until the third quarter of 2025. That’s a very long delay compared to the B580, which we’ve already seen pictures and Amazon listings of ahead of time.

It’s hard to estimate the power of the G31, but the Arc Battlemage B580 is said to rival Nvidia’s RTX 4060. It’s possible that the flagship will target the RTX 4070 or above, but if Intel does wait until the second half of the year to release it, it’ll have a slew of new RTX 50-series and RDNA 4 graphics cards to compete against.

It’s important to take this news with a bit of skepticism, as it may not turn out to be true. On the other hand, Intel did have a long gap between its Arc Alchemist flagship and the Arc A580, so the situation might be reversed this time around, with the B580 presumably launching first and the B770 coming in later.

It won’t be long before we know for certain.

Monica J. White
Monica is a computing writer at Digital Trends, focusing on PC hardware. Since joining the team in 2021, Monica has written…
You can now buy eight RTX 5090s for over $50,000
Comino Grando server.

It's true that we're all waiting for the release of Nvidia's best graphics cards, but ... not like this. The RTX 5090 made a surprise appearance in a GPU server made by Comino, a company that deals with data center design and construction. Although still unannounced by Nvidia, the GPU can now be preordered directly from the manufacturer, but not by itself -- and at a whopping price of around $5,000 per GPU.

Just to clarify: No, Nvidia's RTX 50-series is still not here, and as of yet, Nvidia hasn't even confirmed that there will be an RTX 5090 at all. However, Comino opened up preorders for its next-gen Grando Server equipped with either six or eight RTX 5090 GPUs. This is worrying news for gamers because the RTX 5090 was always meant to be a consumer card. Still, the reality is that the RTX 4090 remained in high demand throughout its tenure because of its AI capabilities, and the RTX 5090 is only going to be even better in that regard.

Read more
Nvidia CEO in 1997: ‘We need to kill Intel’
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at GTC

Those headline above includes strong words from the maker of the best graphics cards you can buy, and they have extra significance considering where Nvidia sits today in relation to Intel. But in 1997, things were a bit different. The quote comes from the upcoming book The Nvidia Way, written by columnist Tae Kim, and was shared as part of an excerpt ahead of the book's release next month.

The words from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang came as part of an all-hands meeting at the company in 1997 following the launch of the RIVA 128. This was prior to the release of the GeForce 256, when Nvidia finally coined the term "GPU," and it was a precarious time for the new company. Shortly following the release of the RIVA 128, Intel launched its own i740, which came with an 8MB frame buffer. The RIVA 128 came with only a 4MB frame buffer.

Read more
Nvidia’s next-gen GPU plans could be good news for Intel and AMD
Two RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics cards sitting next to each other.

According to a new leak from Benchlife, Nvidia may launch the vast majority of the RTX 50-series in the first quarter of 2025 -- but one GPU is notably missing from the early lineup. That could be very good news for AMD and Intel. While Nvidia will rule the high-end market, the other two brands may get to swoop in with some of the best graphics cards for gamers on a budget and get some breathing room before Nvidia strikes back.

Benchlife reveals that we'll see many of the RTX 50-series staples arrive in the first quarter of the year. The flagship RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 arriving in January feel like a sure thing at this point, but many leakers also suggest that we'll see other GPUs make their debut during CES 2025.

Read more