Intel Arc Xe2 "BMG-G31" GPU Spotted in Shipping Manifest; "Battlemage" B770 Model's Fortunes Revived?

[T0@st]

At the tail end of March, an interaction between Tomasz Gawroński (aka GawroskiT) and Jaykihn (jaykihn0) indicated that Intel had abandoned the development of higher-end Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" graphics cards—possibly back in late 2024. Months of silence—since the launch of pleasingly wallet-friendly B580 and B570 models—instilled a sense of unease within segments of the PC gaming hardware community. Many watchdogs assumed that company engineers had simply moved onto devising futuristic Arc Xe3 "Celestial" equivalents. As discovered last week, hopes have been elevated for a potential expansion of Team Blue's "Battlemage" dGPU lineup. Haze2K1 highlighted an intriguing entry within an NBD shipping manifest; a "BMG-G31"-type GPU was transferred "for R&D purposes." Currently, the lower end of Intel's B-card series is populated by discrete solutions based on their smaller "BMG-G21" GPU design.

Tomasz Gawroński spent part of his Easter weekend poring over shipping documents; soon stumbling on an entry that mentioned a mysterious "IBC C32 SKT"—again, listed under "research and development" purposes. In a reply to Gawroński's social media bulletin, miktdt weighed in with a logical theory: "because of the BMG in the text the best I could believe is a reworked/restarted BMG G31. C32 could simply mean cores 32 which is a fully-enabled G31. This makes more sense to me." VideoCardz posits that these leaks do not necessarily signal the revival of fortunes for more potent Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" SKUs; Intel could be shipping "canceled project" prototypes to different locations. Going back to late summer 2023, a "BMG G10" GPU die was spotted by members of the press during a tour of Team Blue's Malaysian test lab. Back then, certain industry insiders believed that the whole "Battlemage" endeavor was going through "development hell." Fast-forward to the present day; OneRaichu reckons that there is still a likelihood of Team Blue's "B770" model turning up at some point in the future.



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[The Shield]

"Arc Xe2 BMG-G31": Intel naming at his finest.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

I'll bet $10 it's the same dies as the B580, & that they finally built up some decent volume of prefect dies now.

 

[kondamin]

I would Welcome it if it were true.

 

[Ruru]

"Arc Xe2 BMG-G31": Intel naming at his finest.

G31 reminds me of their LGA775 budget chipset (with its GMA 3100 graphics).

 

[Dragokar]

I'll bet $10 it's the same dies as the B580, & that they finally built up some decent volume of prefect dies now.

G31 is a different die and in a different BGA package.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

With the release of the 5060Ti 8Gb and the pricing in the current markets I suspect its just the case of Intel seeing a valid price point where a B770/750 class card could very easily enter the market and sell quite well at the 4-500 dollar area.

Also with Intel now focusing on "older platform compatability issues" if they manage to sort those issues out then they are definately a contender in the mainstream market at the 2-500 dollar price point of old!!

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Please lord just get more inventory into the channel, any little bit helps to drive costs down back to MSRP.

 

[Scattergrunt]

With the release of the 5060Ti 8Gb and the pricing in the current markets I suspect its just the case of Intel seeing a valid price point where a B770/750 class card could very easily enter the market and sell quite well at the 4-500 dollar area.

I mean it would be nice if Battlemage got two more releases with a B750 and B770 / B780. The 9060XT / 9070 GRE has been on a radar for new products to buy but Intel could be a more compelling option depending on the price.. speaking personally.

Also with Intel now focusing on "older platform compatability issues" if they manage to sort those issues out then they are definately a contender in the mainstream market at the 2-500 dollar price point of old!!

From what I've read into, it was a definitely more educated than me's *opinion* that it could be a architectural issue. They can do what they can on the software end but in that case it'd only do so much.

If its actually a architecture problem? I don't know, I won't say it is because I'm not gonna get caught spreading FUD. It definitely seems more nuanced than them just steamrolling it over with updates and driver fixes.

 

[yfn_ratchet]

Crossing my fingers so much they're tied in a knot. Would love to see more of what Battlemage can do, especially since it scales so well into higher resolutions. Would make it an excellent candidate for VR titles, assuming their hiccups on Alchemist regarding OpenVR/OpenXR applications have been remediated.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

If its actually a architecture problem? I don't know, I won't say it is because I'm not gonna get caught spreading FUD. It definitely seems more nuanced than them just steamrolling it over with updates and driver fixes.

I can only see the advances the Intel Driver team did with Alchemist since its release and there was fundamental issues due to design decisions made early on in the design phase. So yes this is just hopeful thinking but Intel have done decently in their driver overhauls in the past.

Battlemage was really just a refinement/tweak of Alchemist vs a complete overhaul that Celestial in theory should be so it may not be till then that we see a major shift in this aspect but any work that they do to mitigate this impact would be majorly beneficial to Zen 4/11th Gen Core and older systems and should in theory lower the impact/requirement of a Bigger more powerful battlemage in regards to CPU "requirement"