Intel once had some big plans for its Battlemage GPU family with bigger dies, 3D stacked cache solutions & more, yet those were cancelled due to unfortunate circumstances surrounding the financial position of the blue team, and changes in the leadership.
Intel's Canned "Battlemage" GPU Plans Reveal Bigger Dies With Up To 40 Xe2 Cores, 3D Stacked "Adamantine" Cache & Halo SoCs
Intel's first generation of Arc GPUs, codenamed Alchemist, didn't kick off the way the blue team wanted, but the graphics division made a huge comeback through solid driver support, which set the stage for its next-gen Arc lineup, aka Battlemage. When Intel was developing its Xe2 "Battlemage" GPUs, the company laid out some really ambitious plans. We now only see remnants of those plans in the form of prototypes or revelations from insiders.
X user, @GOKForFree, who has been actively sharing some interesting prototypes of Intel's Arc discrete graphics card, had posted pictures of an unknown graphics card a while back. The pictures were posted back in May (2025), and while there was little to no information available back then, we now have an idea of what this PCB was going to be used for.
For starters, the graphics card PCB was designed for a much bigger GPU die, bigger than the Battlemage BMG-G21, which found its way on the retail Arc B580 and Arc B570 graphics cards. The board features six GDDR6 memory sites, hinting at a 192-bit bus and also houses dual 8-pin connectors. The VRM also looks higher-end versus the Arc B-series graphics cards.
It looks like we now have an idea of what this PCB was going to be used for, and it looks to be designed around the higher-end Intel Battlemage BMG-G10 die, which features a BGA 2727 design. According to Bionic_Squash, the BMG-G10 GPU was going to come in two configurations: the BMG-G10 X3 with 28 Xe cores and the BMG-G10 X4 with 40 Xe cores. For comparison, the Intel Arc B580 maxes out with 20 Xe cores.
- Battlemage BMG-G10 X4 (Cancelled): 40 Xe2 Cores
- Battlemage BMG-G31 (Expected): 32 Xe2 Cores
- Battlemage BMG-G10 X3 (Cancelled): 28 Xe2 Cores
- Battlemage BMG-G21 (Launched): 20 Xe2 Cores
Looking at the BGA arrangement on the prototype Arc Battlemage PCB, it definitely looks like this was going to be used for a higher-end and different GPU than the BMG-G21, as the BGA layout for that chip is different:
In addition to this, another major feature on the cancelled Arc Battlemage discrete graphics card was going to be the use of Adamantine cache. This was going to be a 3D stacked solution with the base tile offering up to 512 MB of cache and the GPU residing on top of the base tile, similar to Clearwater Forest chips.
The same cache solution and higher-end Battlemage discrete graphics tile were also going to be featured on Arrow Lake Halo SoCs, which were also cancelled. The company is now expected to launch its first Halo SoC with the Nova Lake lineup, which will integrate Xe3P GPUs, while future Halo SoCs could make use of both Intel and NVIDIA GPU tiles.
Besides all of this, the cancelled Intel Arc Battlemage BMG-G10 X3 discrete graphics cards would have retained a 192-bit bus interface, though we could've seen doubling of memory, say 24 GB like the PRO cards and faster pin speeds for faster bandwidth. The higher-end X4 variant would've featured a 256-bit bus interface. The graphics cards also featured PCIe Gen5 readiness. So overall, Intel was going to go a very different route before significant changes were made to the company.
Regardless, Intel's Arc division is still alive and kicking. The software division is doing superbly, and rolling out great drivers, and we also recently saw the announcement of XeSS 3 MFG alongside other useful tech at the Tech Tour 2025. Intel is also reportedly working on a higher-end Battlemage GPU, the Arc B770, & with Nova Lake getting Xe3P, which should power the next-gen Arc lineup, we are excited as ever for Intel's next big graphics and GPU announcement.
Intel ARC Gaming GPU Lineup
| GPU Family | Intel Xe | Intel Xe+ | Intel Xe2 | Intel Xe3 | Intel Xe3P | Intel Xe Next | Intel Xe Next Next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dGPU Products | ARC Alchemist GPUs | N/A | ARC Battlemage GPUs | ARC Battlemage GPUs? | Arc Celestial GPUs? | ARC Druid GPUs | ARC E*** GPUs |
| iGPU Products | Arc Graphics | Arc 100-Series | Arc 200-Series | Arc B-Series | Arc C-Series? | TBA | TBA |
| GPU Segment | Mainstream Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | TBC | TBC | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) |
| GPU Gen | Gen 12 | Gen 12 | Gen 13? | Gen 14? | Gen 15? | Gen 16? | Gen 17? |
| CPU iGPU | Xe-LPG (Meteor Lake) | Xe-LPG+ (Arrow Lake) | Xe2-LPG (Lunar Lake) | Xe3-LPG (Panther Lake) | Xe3P-LPG (Nova Lake) | TBA | TBA |
| Process Node | TSMC 6nm | TSMC 6nm | TSMC 5nm (3nm Lunar Lake Tile) | TSMC 3nm / Intel 3 | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Max Xe Cores | 32 | 8 | 32? | 8 | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Memory Subsystem | G6/LP5 | G6/LP5X | G6/LP5X | G6/LP5X | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Launch | 2022 | 2024 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027? | 2028? |
News Source: RawMango
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