Intel is already working on its 3rd generation Celestial GPUs – but we’re still waiting for discrete 2nd generation Battlemage graphics cards
Intel is already working on support for its Xe3 GPU architecture in Linux – even though Xe3, codenamed Celestial, won’t be used in chips until late 2025 (at the earliest)
Battlemage, Intel’s 2nd generation Arc graphics, has only just arrived (in Lunar Lake laptops as the integrated GPU), so it’s still very early days for the 3rd generation Celestial.
However, if Phoronix According to reports, Intel engineers are currently laying the groundwork for enabling Xe3 in the Linux kernel.
So far, we know nothing about how Xe3 – which will first be used as the integrated graphics in next year’s Panther Lake processors, Lunar Lake’s successor on the laptop side of the PC fence – will improve compared to of its predecessor.
The Linux driver code may eventually give us a clue, but it hasn’t yet. It builds on the existing Xe2 code and targets Xe3 LPM (low-power mode).
What about discreet Celestial?
While this is Xe3 for laptops, the prospect of discrete graphics cards built on Celestial seems much further away. After all, as we’ve already noted, Battlemage’s discrete GPUs haven’t even arrived yet, just the implementation of integrated graphics for Intel’s Lunar Lake mobile chips. It may be a while before we see standalone Battlemage graphics cards for desktop PCs, but hopefully, with any luck, these will arrive relatively early in 2025.
Meanwhile, Intel is certainly making strides when it comes to how powerful its integrated graphics are, especially with Lunar Lake, and now that Arrow Lake mobile processors are also on the horizon, and looking pretty nifty too.