There has been a lot of rumors and speculation over the past few weeks about whether Intel’s graphics division, AXG, will eventually shut down.It’s not something I personally thought was likely to happen (opens in new tab) But certainly one of today’s top analysts feared the worst. We still don’t know exactly what’s going on behind closed doors and it’s unlikely we’ll get that kind of insight, but speaking with Intel this week, graphics including gaming graphics he’s on the roadmap It is said that it is as devoted as ever to card.
Let me be clear, we are not going anywhere.
Tom Petersen, Intel
“We’re not going anywhere with our discrete business, and our discrete business is fundamental technology development going into both the data center and integrated GPUs,” said Intel’s Tom Petersen.
When I asked Petersen if that was the message Intel was trying to get across, he responded with a bombastic, “Yeah, we’re not going anywhere.”
“I feel like there’s a lot of FUD[fear, uncertainty and doubt]out there. I want to be clear, we’re not going anywhere,” he continues.
“It just so happens that I believe Pat, I, Roger, Lisa and Ryan all agree that graphics is a critical technology for our clients and a critical technology for our data centers. We want to start competing in the mainstream space where our competitors are making huge profits. So all three things are very important for Intel.”
As I said earlier, this is not a promise that Intel’s approach to graphics, gaming, etc. will never change. Still, the companies that work most closely with the company’s gaming graphics products are as committed as ever. That’s good news considering Intel has confirmed at least three more generations of Arc GPUs (Battlemage, Celestial, and Druid) on its roadmap.
Battlemage development has already begun, and Petersen confirms that the majority of graphics engineers at Arc are now eyeing the second generation. Some engineers are looking at early “technical proof points” for Celestial.
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“Most of our ASIC team uses Battlemage,” says Petersen. “A small part of it is our future, and it’s the Celestials. And there’s a very small part of Alchemist today, but they’re kind of a different set of features. We call what we call a chip team a chip team.” Think of it like getting the board right, and the BIOS right, and doing all the final tweaks…but the majority of the design team uses Battlemage.
Intel has done a lot of work on drivers as well as working on not-so-great DX11 support, (opens in new tab) We will continue to support new and upcoming games on DX12 and Vulkan.
“Most of the driver team is on Alchemist, but a small part of the driver team is doing emulation, doing simulations, doing pre-silicon work, and part of the time they’re working on Battlemage. It’s the same person as you, so I’m confident we can bring Battlemage to market faster, with fewer surprises, and less growing pains.”
Intel has confirmed that so far it’s focused on competing at the high end with Arc’s later generations, something it couldn’t achieve with the first generation.
“Our plan is to start here. And then add on top, then add on top. And we’re starting with the volume segment of the market, so it’s not really a hard strategy to figure out. Time. Over time, it will become a higher performing segment.”
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We also wondered if Alchemist’s delay in response would affect Battlemage and its delayed release, but both Petersen and colleague Ryan Shrout seem confident in sticking with Intel’s plans. Ultimately, Intel doesn’t have a particularly specific release date for Battlemage on its current roadmap, with only vague promises of a 2023-24 window. Anyway, Battlemage release As for days, I’m not sure if I can collect them all yet.
Celestial is marked down for a release window beyond 2024, which is as vague as possible. Druid hasn’t appeared much since Intel’s Architecture Day slides over a year ago.
Basically: Intel has plenty of headroom in offering these graphics cards. We’ll also see Nvidia and AMD turn the crank on another certainly exciting GPU generation from now on, so it’s likely that some plans will change as a result.
For now, Intel is focused on releasing Alchemist 1st generation cards with the A770 and A750. (opens in new tab) Expected soon.
