After weeks of rumors, it’s finally a fact: Intel Arc Battlemage is on the imminent horizon, and the company is set to announce its next-gen GPUs on December 3. However, according to leaks, we’re not getting the full scope of Intel Battlemage just yet. In fact, it may be a long time before we see Battlemage rank among the best graphics cards.
It’s been a quiet year for Intel’s discrete graphics department, but the last few weeks have been filled with leaks, and now, Intel itself confirms that we’re getting some sort of an announcement tomorrow. It’s unclear what exactly is being announced, other than the fact that it’s Battlemage.
The question now is, how much of the lineup will make an appearance during this initial announcement?
Happy December! It’s time to B merry🎄See you on December 3rd at 9am ET on https://t.co/WSCIoxfKtY
PT: 6:00 AM
CET: 3:00 PM
JST: 11:00 PM
AET: 12:00 AM (Dec 4th) pic.twitter.com/DrZN4hNE1z
— Intel Gaming (@IntelGaming) December 1, 2024
As usual, leakers supply information where companies are keeping it close to their chests, and according to Benchlife, we’re not going to see the full scope of Battlemage tomorrow. In fact, one of the GPUs might come in very late compared to the initial lineup.
The card in question is the flagship GPU, the G31. Benchlife, as well as other leakers, claim that Intel may not launch its top GPU alongside the rumored B580 tomorrow, and the graphics card is said to not hit the market until the third quarter of 2025. That’s a very long delay compared to the B580, which we’ve already seen pictures and Amazon listings of ahead of time.
It’s hard to estimate the power of the G31, but the Arc Battlemage B580 is said to rival Nvidia’s RTX 4060. It’s possible that the flagship will target the RTX 4070 or above, but if Intel does wait until the second half of the year to release it, it’ll have a slew of new RTX 50-series and RDNA 4 graphics cards to compete against.
It’s important to take this news with a bit of skepticism, as it may not turn out to be true. On the other hand, Intel did have a long gap between its Arc Alchemist flagship and the Arc A580, so the situation might be reversed this time around, with the B580 presumably launching first and the B770 coming in later.
It won’t be long before we know for certain.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.