Intel has reportedly canceled its high-end Xe2-based Arc Battlemage “BMG-G31” GPUs which were going to be used in gaming graphics cards.
Intel Isn’t Planning To Compete In The High-End Gaming Segment As It Has Reportedly Cancelled Xe2 Arc Battlemage “BMG-G31” GPUs
Intel seems to be backing out of the high-end gaming Arc GPU segment with its Battlemage Xe2 chips. The company was previously reported to have been working on high-end solutions with up to 24 GB of VRAM and several variants were spotted within Shipping Manifestos. The Blue Team has also reiterated its commitment towards the discrete GPU segment, stating that it will continue to make “Strategic Investments” within the platform.
Based on the latest report by reliable insider and leaker, @Jaykihn0, it looks like the company has significantly altered its discrete GPU plans. It is said that the high-end Battlemage BMG-G31 GPU is more or less dead and that has been the case since Q3 of 2024. We did see some dies ship by the tail end of 2024, but it looks like those may just be for testing or evaluation purposes with plans for a retail launch being scrapped much earlier.
Died in Q3 of last year.
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) March 27, 2025
The BMG-G31 GPU die was supposed to be bigger than the G21 featured on the B580 and B570 graphics cards. It was reportedly going to feature around 24-32 Xe2 cores with a 256-bit memory bus and 16 GB of GDDR6 memory.
Additionally, it is also mentioned that there’s currently no update on the Celestial “Xe3” discrete GPU lineup. The Xe3 architecture will be deployed in the next-generation Panther Lake CPUs that are being fabricated on the Intel 18A process node, but that’s an integrated solution. Whether we will get a Celestial “Xe3” GPU for discrete use remains to be seen.
Nothing to report.
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) March 27, 2025
Although there are no reports of a high-end Battlemage GPU, it could be likely that we may see it reappear in the coming months, as was the case with the Arrow Lake Refresh, which was seemingly canceled, but according to the latest info, it is back and coming to desktops and laptops.
Also, Intel not disclosing any discrete plans for Celestial GPUs at the moment might just be because they are still far from launch. The same leaker previously said that the Xe3 “Celestial” and Xe4 “Druid” GPUs were very much alive and will be coming to discrete solutions, so there’s still some hope to see Arc in action in the coming years.
With the Arc B580 and Arc B570, Intel has provided strong value in a segment where NVIDIA and AMD currently have no new options. Battlemage also proves itself to be an impressive solution for integrated graphics and competes well against AMD’s latest RDNA 3.5 offerings. Although we would love to see a high-end Battlemage graphics card, it looks like the company is going to focus its GPU efforts on the integrated sides a bit more but will continue to provide gamers with some decent value-oriented products, such as its recent launches.
Intel ARC Gaming GPU Lineup
| GPU Family | Intel Xe-HPG | Intel Xe-HPG | Intel Xe2-HPG | Intel Xe3-HPG | Intel Xe Next | Intel Xe Next Next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Products | ARC Alchemist GPUs | ARC Alchemist+ GPUs | ARC Battlemage GPUs | ARC Celestial GPUs | ARC Druid GPUs | ARC E*** GPUs |
| GPU Segment | Mainstream Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) |
| GPU Gen | Gen 12 | Gen 12 | Gen 13? | Gen 14? | Gen 15? | Gen 16? |
| CPU iGPU | Xe-LPG (Meteor Lake) | Xe-LPG+ (Arrow Lake) | Xe2-LPG (Lunar Lake) | Xe3-LPG (Panther Lake) | TBA | TBA |
| Process Node | TSMC 6nm | TSMC 6nm | TSMC 5nm (3nm Lunar Lake Tile) | TSMC 3nm? | TBA | TBA |
| Specs / Design | 512 EUs / 1 Tile / 1 GPU | 512 EUs / 1 Tile / 1 GPU | 1024 EUs / 1 Tile / 1 GPU | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Memory Subsystem | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Launch | 2022 | 2024 | 2024 | 2025? | 2026? | 2026+ |
