A brand new Intel Battlemage gaming GPU could be unleashed soon

A recent driver update has yet again teased a new unannounced Intel graphics card that could be a new Battlemage card. Reports suggest that it is linked to BMG-G21, the Intel GPU used in recent cards like the Intel Arc B580, adding to the list of other Intel cards rumored to be in the works.

Intel has been pretty quiet about its future graphics card plans, although speculation has been rife for some time that new Intel Arc Battlemage GPUs are on the way. We've also seen recent Intel gaming GPU rumors suggesting that new GPUs could launch late this year, hopefully with the power to compete with the models in our best graphics card guide

Developer Lasse Kärkkäinen shared the discovery in a post on X (formerly Twitter), showing a device with the hardware ID number 0xe209 being added to a recent Linux Mesa graphics driver update, after sharing news about its addition to the Linux kernel back in July.

Kärkkäinen also speculates that this might be the retail version of the Intel Arc Pro B50, a workstation GPU with 16 Xe2 cores and 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM. There's no information to support that here, however, so take it with a huge grain of salt, but if it's that the case, this card would offer performance that rivals the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050.

That GPU has 13.17 TFLOPs of GPU processing power versus the Arc Pro B50's 10.65, although the increased VRAM would help deliver better frame rates in GPU-heavy games. Again, however, this is entirely on-paper speculation, with plenty that could shift the needle one way or another in the real world.

Intel regularly keeps the Linux Mesa drivers up-to-date with new cards that it trials and tests, giving us a hint of their existence, even if Intel doesn't decide to release them. We are still expecting to see new Intel GPUs launch this year, based on current rumors, but Intel hasn't confirmed it, so take it all with a grain of salt for now.

Either way, we'll be keen to see what Intel has been cooking up in its labs over the coming months, and whether it can provide a competitive third-way option for budget gamers against Nvidia and AMD. You can check out our AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT review next to see why that AMD card is currently the best option for most gamers.

Planning a new rig for your gaming needs? Our best gaming motherboard and best gaming CPU guides are good places to get started, helping you choose between an AMD or Intel-focused build.

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