Intel cancels massive Battlemage GPUs with 40 cores
Intel canceled ambitious plans for high-end Battlemage graphics processors that would have featured up to 40 Xe2 cores and a 3D stacked cache technology called Adamantine. The company had designed circuit boards for larger dies than those used in the current Arc B580 and B570 cards, including a BMG-G10 variant with either 28 or 40 Xe2 cores, far exceeding the 20 cores in released models.
These unreleased GPUs were intended for a 192-bit memory bus, dual 8-pin power connectors, and PCIe Gen5 support. The Adamantine cache design stacked the GPU on top of a base tile that held up to 512 MB of cache, similar to Intel’s Clearwater Forest chips. The same components were also planned for Arrow Lake Halo system-on-chips, which were scrapped.
Intel has since shifted focus to its Nova Lake processors with Xe3P graphics and a rumored Arc B770 card. Despite the cancellations, the company continues to update drivers and develop new features, such as XeSS 3 MFG.
