The top end of Battlemage, Intel's next major GPU, is rumoured to finally launch next month and could be bringing RTX 4070 Super levels of gaming. Alongside this, we should see a cheaper GPU intended to directly compete with the RTX 4060 Ti.
Intel has been in a bit of a weird spot for some time. Its 13th and 14th gen chips suffered from severe stability issues and even its latest CPUs, the Ultra 5 245K and Ultra 9 285K, are a bit of a letdown in the gaming department. With its upcoming mid-range discrete GPU, codenamed Battlemage, it has a chance to claw back a little of its credibility and the latest rumours suggest it might just do that.
As reported by tech YouTuber RedGamingTech, Intel is currently prepping two. The first, named "G21", is said to be housed in a graphics card that will be roughly equivalent to an RTX 4060 Ti, with 12 GB of VRAM and coming in with a power draw of something like 130+ W. The second, more powerful slice of Battlemage silicon is currently called G31 and is claimed to be 'on par' with an RTX 4070 Super when slotted into a board with 16 GB of VRAM and 225+ W of power at its disposal.
Earlier this year, it was reported that, while Intel had worked on a GPU much more powerful than these behind the scenes, it had decided to commit its resources to the mid-range market as that's where the money is for most gamers.
Coming in at RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070 Super levels, just before Nvidia is due to announce the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 line, is an interesting choice from Intel, and signposts its desire to compete with its mid-range cards.
To do so, it needs to beat out Nvidia's cards in price or offer better performance in some way. I have just recently upgraded to an RTX 4070 Super myself and it's an excellent bit of tech at its MSRP of $599. If Intel can undercut that significantly then it's got a chance, but whether it can afford to in these troubled times is going to be another thing entirely.
Previous Intel Arc cards have often been held back by high power draw, an expensive price, and software issues. But that software has improved over the last few years so there's hope that Intel can pull it out of the bag. We've tested Battlemage in its Lunar Lake iGPU form, and it's a far more consistent performer than any of the Alchemist GPUs we've tested previously. So, it should be a smoother ride for anyone picking up a discrete Intel graphics card of the next generation.
Just last month, hardware leaker Golden Pig shared that the card would be launching in December, though there is some ambiguity there as the translation from Chinese to English could have lost some sarcasm in their original post to social media site Weibo. However, that same release window is reiterated in the RedGamingTech video above, further pointing to a launch potentially in only a few weeks time.
