For us regular PC gamers, undoubtedly the most fascinating aspect of the up-to-date Intel Panther Lake processor is the integrated Xe3 graphics. This looks like it could be a killer, especially for portable gaming PCs. But is the Xe3 iGPU in Panther Lake based on the much-discussed next-gen Celestial graphics technology? Battlemage delicate fix? Or maybe something completely different?
In interview for PC WorldIntel’s long-suffering graphics representative, Tom Petersen, tried to explain the situation. But we came out with something more confused. And I’m worried about Arc more generally.
In addition to a host of other information about Panther Lake, Intel released a very misleading slide showing that the iGPU in the up-to-date chip represents the first step in the development of the Xe3 graphics architecture. But this slide also indicates that the Panther Lake graphics will be branded as “B Series”, as will the Intel Arc B580, which uses Xe2 technology, otherwise known (and indeed mentioned on the slide in question) as Battlemage.
Another oddity is that while the slide references both Xe2 and the Battle Mage, it only invokes Xe3, not the generational codename “Heavenly” that was previously attached to Xe3. To make matters even more astonishing, Intel briefly introduces its future next-generation graphics “Xe3P”, again making no mention of Celestial or any other codename.
However, the final confusion on the slide may be the best. It’s subtitled “Expanding the Battlemage Family,” which largely suggests that this up-to-date Xe3 GPU in Panther Lake that’s “expanding” at all, if it exists at all, must be a Battlemage GPU. But surely Battlemage is Xe2, right? What’s going on?
“One way to think about it is that Xe3 is our next-generation architecture and we’re using it in Panther Lake. There’s no question about the architecture in Panther Lake, it’s Xe3,” Petersen says.
Au contraire, there is a question. Is Xe3 the same as Celestial and is it therefore Celestial in Battlemage? His answer is confusing to say the least. So here it is in full:
“The naming in our SoCs is quite a complicated issue. So we decided to keep the B-series name for Panther Lake to kind of leverage all the good work we’ve done with Battlemage. People know about the B-series, they know about the B580, they know all our naming. So we’re not really ready to move it to ‘C’ because we don’t think it’s the right time.” So when we move on to our next architecture, which we will also be introducing, he teased some more, there will be ‘Xe3P,’ then there will be a time when we will change our name,” he said.
Bright? A lot of? When pressed again in late 2024 on what he was talking about, when he mentioned that the Celestial hardware team was done and how comments from last year related to Panther Lake, Petersen added:
“I talked about the architecture team, the implementation team and these guys in general. Their work will be embodied in Panther Lake first,” Petersen explained. For my money, this is a pretty opaque and evasive answer. This does not mean that I am criticizing Petersen; he is most likely doing his best to answer the question as simply as possible. However, there seem to be unspoken restrictions limiting what he can say.
As for that, well, they probably involve the future of Intel’s Arc graphics and its up-to-date deal with Nvidia, which will see the latter supplying iGPUs to Intel processors. As soon as the Nvidia deal was announced, the immediate question was whether it would mean the end of discrete Arc graphics cards.
It is impossible to say this with certainty for now. But for my money, and this is a personal take, I suspect Arc discrete graphics are now dead.
To start, Petersen was asked “if Intel is committed to Arc” and all he could answer was: “I believe so, and I will say that for Panther Lake we have built the largest ever integrated graphics with 12 Xe cores. This is our largest commitment to graphics and that is not changing.”
Moreover, based on this and the apparent abandonment of the “Celestial” codename in Intel’s latest announcement, I have the impression that the entire generational branding of “Alchemist”, “Battlemage”, “Celestial”, and indeed the future “Druid” was mainly about discrete GPUs, even if the same architectures were introduced or planned for iGPUs as well.
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So, if discrete Arc graphics cards are eliminated, generational nomenclature will be associated with them. At the same time, Intel will introduce the “A”, “B”, “C” product naming prefix to mobile devices to distinguish iGPU generations, it will be less problematic if discrete GPUs are phased out.
Calling the iGPU in Panther Lake “B-series” or indeed the iGPU in a future chip “C-series” won’t be a problem in terms of performance expectations when there isn’t a discrete GPU to compare it to, or soon won’t be. This won’t suggest to buyers that they’re getting a mobile version of some B- or C-series desktop GPU, like the aforementioned Arc B580, if one doesn’t exist.
Either way, none of this could be any less clear. Even after this interview, it’s anyone’s guess whether Xe3 in Panther Lake is actually full next-gen Celestial technology or something more incremental. Nick believes this is not the case and is instead a delicate modification of Battlemage rather than a up-to-date architecture worthy of generational branding, and I would disagree with that.
Meanwhile, how the mysterious next-gen “XE3P” graphics, briefly mentioned in the now-famous slide above, fits into all of this is even more puzzling, as is the question of how it will all tie into the Nvidia deal and imported RTX iGPUs. It’s all a bit of a mystery. And not very encouraging if you want to see more Arc graphics cards for desktops.
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