Key Takeaways
- Intel’s Battlemage graphics card is on the horizon with a possible early release.
- Recent driver updates show Intel preparing PCs for Battlemage.
- Lack of info on Battlemage specs raises concerns, but Intel staying secretive may be its strategy to stay ahead.
With Intel striving to produce one of the best graphics cards of 2024, it faces some stiff competition with both AMD and Nvidia. Its big splash in the GPU market is a card codenamed “Battlemage,” and Intel has been pretty good at keeping a lid on what this new card can manage. And while it’s rumored that Battlemage may release sometime before Black Friday, we now know that it will support uncompressed 8K video at 144Hz.
First spotted by Phoronix, Intel’s latest patches for its Linux graphics drivers include an interesting addition. Right at the top of the patch notes, Intel states that the newest update “adds display support for Battlemage.” This means Intel has reached a stage where it can begin prepping people’s PCs to handle Battlemage cards once they are released.
VideoCardz chimed in with some additional information about the driver. It noted that the update removes support for DisplayPort v2.0 UBHR20, which comes in at 20Gbps. Intel then applied a cap of 13.5Gbps on the card, which VideoCardz claims isn’t a huge deal, as consumer-based monitors that can support 20Gbps won’t be a feasible reality until much later. However, the 13.5Gbps limit still allows Battlemage to support uncompressed 8K video at 144Hz, so it’s not all bad news.
Intel needs Battlemage to be a hit
Unfortunately, the drivers don’t really go into much more detail about Battlemage. For instance, we can’t really glean any confirmation on its hardware specifications. The silence is a little worrying, as Intel really needs to redeem itself in the GPU market with Battlemage, and we still don’t know how it will hold up to the competition. However, the lack of information may be Intel keeping its cards close to its chest so its competitors don’t beat it to the punch. We’ll have to wait and see if Battlemage will secure Intel’s position in the GPU market, or if it’ll fall behind as AMD and Nvidia power forward in an AI hardware-driven market.