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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.

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

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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…
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