After a few weeks of leaks, the new Intel Arc GPU lineup now appears to be incredibly close to launch. Codenamed Battlemage, this Xe2-powered gaming GPU lineup will represent Intel’s second stab at dedicated graphics hardware.
While the first Intel Arc lineup, Alchemist, wasn’t the most powerful on the market – or the best graphics card by any stretch – Intel proved it could make a decent GPU for a reasonable price, as we found in our Intel Arc A770 review. Compared to the prices of Nvidia and AMD cards, Intel’s often sub-$300 price points have offered a decent change of pace.
According to a new VideoCardz report, the Intel Battlemage graphics release date will be Tuesday, December 3, 2024. Both the “Limited Edition” B580 and B570 are expected to be officially revealed on this date, according to the site, and then expected to be followed by the launch date and reviews on December 12.
The next day (December 13), partner cards – such as the leaked ASRock Intel Arc B580 cards – get their reviews. The leaked ASRock cards on Amazon only showed off the B580, apparently confirming that these cards will have 12GB of GDDR6 video memory. Another leak also revealed that this GPU should stay under that $300 mark, with the reported Intel Arc B580 price being around $250.
Intel appears to be getting out of the way of Nvidia’s steamroller, the RTX 5000 series. While Nvidia is apparently gearing up for the RTX 5090 launch in January 2025, it looks as though Intel is looking to spend at least December in the spotlight.
Intel’s original GPU launch was met with lukewarm reviews. The Arc’s first releases were decent graphics cards on their own but were plagued with compatibility issues. Games running on older DirectX versions would often be met with performance problems, or in some cases should straight-up not work. Many of these issues were eventually smoothed out, though, with the Battlemage GPUs hopefully launching issue-free
Usually known for its processors, Intel’s latest fare hasn’t made our best gaming CPU list as of yet. The Intel Arrow Lake range has been bogged down with its own performance issues, as found in our Core Ultra 265K review, and AMD has knocked Intel out of the top 10 on major retailers’ websites.