Intel Arc B580 review: finally an exciting and affordable budget GPU
Table of Contents
Intel is releasing its next generation of graphics cards to test and enjoy. We can only hope it improves on its Arc series, as that series’ Alchemist release was a bit shaky with the impaired driver issues. So, with the Battlemage release, the lessons learned might come to fruition and give another competitor in the market, even as Intel isn’t having the best of times. In either case, we tested the Intel Arc B580 and saw how it performed and if it was a sound graphics card solution.
- GPU: BGM-G21
- Shading units: 2,560
- VRAM: 12GB GDDR6
- Memory bus width: 192-bit
- Bandwidth: 456GB/s
- Base/Boost clock speed: 2,670/2,740 MHz
The Intel Arc B580 is a great budget graphics card with an MSRP of $250; it provides competition and an entry-level solution where it seems to be lacking. Coming in with a decent amount of VRAM for the ever-growing graphics requirements at a lower price, it even offers 1440p performance at times in a tier where the competition was a bit stale. It’s certainly a great alternative to an entry-level gaming card.
But it does have some drawbacks. With some ongoing teething issues from its initial Alchemist drivers, there have been improvements, but it may not always perform well with some older games. The PCIe 4.0 x8 slot may also mean that motherboards with older Gen 3 slots lose out on some performance, along with weaker rendering and ray tracing capabilities than Nvidia cards.
- Great price to performance
- Plenty of VRAM in comparison to the competition
- HDMI 2.1 and DP 2.1 are available
- Well-built and slim design
- Only Gen 4 x8 PCIe – may be an issue for older motherboards
- Slightly more expensive than reference card
- Still occasional troubles in older games specifically
B580 price
Intel is coming in with a surprisingly low and very competitive price point for the B580. With the card MSRP set to $249/£249, it’s a relatively inexpensive piece of hardware. Especially if it is capable of 1440p or high 1080p gaming, that will put it in competition with the RTX 4060 and RX 7600, which had a release price of $299 and $269, respectively, so undercutting those while offering a newer bit of hardware with higher memory specs might be the stronger alternative, even if it is an increase in price compared to Alchemist’s A580.
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Of course, that’s for the base model. Custom solutions occasionally raise that price by tens of dollars but for a supposedly better solution with overclocks and other features. For example, the Sparkle version we are reviewing is available for $269.99/£259.99, but it comes with a slightly overclocked solution and differs in cooling and design from Intel’s reference card.
We can also expect competition to renew and come out in force soon. Both the RTX 50 and RX 8000 series release are rumored to be at the beginning of 2025 and might bring something that will rival the B580.
Key specs
| Spec | Arc B580 | Arc A580 |
|---|---|---|
| Microarchitecture | Xe2 | Xe HPG |
| Lithography | TSMC N5 | TSMC N6 |
| Xe-cores | 20 | 24 |
| Render slices | 5 | 6 |
| Ray tracing units | 20 | 24 |
| Xe vector engines | 160 | 384 |
| Graphics Clock | 2,670MHz | 1,700MHz |
| GPU Peak TOPS | 233 | 197 |
| TBP | 190W | 185W |
| PCIe version | 4.0 x8 | 4.0 x16 |
| Memory | 12GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Interface/Speed/Bandwidth | 192-bit/19Gbps/456GB/s | 256-bit/16Gbps/512GB/s |
| Video outputs | HDMI 2.1, DP 2.1 | HDMI 2.1, DP 2.0 |
| Launch price | $249/£249 | $180/£180 |
| Launch Date | December 2024 | October 2023 |
Regarding the new Battlemage specs, the B580 over the A580 brings significant improvements and changes, but there are some drawbacks, too. Starting with the microarchitecture, the Xe2 Intel says it focuses more on efficiency and higher performance per core without requiring as much software. This Intel suggests it provides 70% higher performance per core and 50% more per Watt over the Alchemist range.
It also adds AI engines and improved ray-tracing capabilities. With the release of XeSS 2, a new generation of its upscaling will boost performance even further where it’s available. But considering the rest of the specs onboard, it may not even need it.
It also boasts 12GB of memory, up 4GB from the previous generation. Although it loses some bandwidth, plenty is still available to the VRAM. Considering what the competition offers at this tier, it should provide a strong performance with the extra capacity. Even if it also halves the width of the PCIe lane, it won’t likely need the whole x16 slot, so it saves on the costs and gives it that edge in price.
While it increases efficiency, it still adds to the card’s board power by 5W up to 190W. It also increases the DisplayPort standard to enable a higher bandwidth if you need it for those higher resolutions and refresh rates.
Design
I got hands-on with the Sparkle Titan OC model, which offers a different design and solution than the reference model Intel showcased. This one has a rather lovely color scheme and a robust build. It comes in a sort of Intel Arc blue colorway, a move away from the black we’re so used to seeing everywhere else, and a grey fan color that gives it a great look.
It does come in surprisingly long, with dimensions of 315x117x44mm. It has a slim, just over 2-slot design but extends rather far, with an over 300mm length. But don’t worry; it comes with a GPU holder with an S-shaped base in case you have to fit such a large tower, but at least you won’t have to worry about the card sagging.
You can expect much cooling with the three fans and flow-through cutouts on the metal and solid backplate. As it also has open sides and IO, it does have airflow in mind, and surprisingly, it has a lot with just the 200W TBP of the B580. However, with that power requirement, it only uses one 8-pin power cable, which makes it simple to route cables for power.
Performance
Of course, the main factor of a graphics card is the performance it can achieve. So, I put it through the PC Guide testing lab and found out what that performance is by putting the B580 through its paces. I also put it up against the RTX 4060 to have a comparison card at the same tier, and I did so on the following test bench.
- Motherboard: ASUS ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI
- CPU: Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- RAM: Corsair Dominator Titanium RGB (64GB, 6600MT/s, CL32)
- CPU Cooler: ROG RYUJIN III 360
- PSU: 1000W Phanteks
Gaming
Firstly, I looked at its gaming performance. Checking a range of resolutions and the highest settings available without any upscaling gives us a pure look and comparison of capabilities and framerates. Although that did cause some issues for the Nvidia card in some scenarios, I’ll cover them as they arise.
But starting the performance in Counter Strike 2 is excellent; of course, no one would play on the very high preset and instead look for the best FPS, but it is a good comparison. Both GPUs do well here, but the 4060 ran ahead at first. However, as the resolution increased, the B580 quickly caught up with its 4GB more VRAM onboard to help with the texture caching.
In Cyberpunk, the case is flipped as the B580 takes the lead over the 4060 and gets playable framerates even at 1440p on the Ultra settings. But then, with ray tracing ultra, that difference shrinks as Nvidia’s capabilities are still strong, but the memory limitations still cut down its performance.
Intel Arc B580 Doom Eternal, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 Cyberpunk 2077, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 AC Mirage, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 CS2, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 Indiana Jones The Great Circle, Image by PC Guide
Doom Eternal is where the limited VRAM cut the 4060’s ability, as the B580 crushed it across all resolutions and with ray tracing enabled. Quickly leading the way, the ultra nightmare settings chewed through the available VRAM, and the 4060 ran out, meaning it could not run 4k. It also showcases what that means for performance at 1440p with RT enabled as it drops to 23FPS while the B580 comfortably sits at 126.
A similar scenario can be seen in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Assassin’s Creed Mirage, where the two cards are neck and neck for framerates, but the Intel card pulls ahead in the higher resolutions. Even if the ray tracing performance isn’t as strong in SOTTR, it’s not far off.
The odd one is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which struggled to get going even on the 4060s. It could only achieve medium settings without upscaling but performs better as the game runs ray tracing at all times and has an advantage over the Intel card.
Synthetics and rendering
Regarding synthetics, it’s a bit of a mixed bag between the two cards. As in 3DMark when it comes to rendering and similar to gaming scenarios, the B580 takes the lead, even in Port Royal, which is made for ray tracing scenes and loads. But then, in Blender benchmarks and having to render full scenes, it massively falls behind. With nearly half the samples per minute, it’s not the ideal option for render performance.
Then, in Handbrake, testing the video render performance, depending on the encoding type, produced various results. For example, the Arc B580 has the fastest hardware encoding with H.265 QSV in 4k, as that is Intel’s own Quick Sync Video, with the 12-minute 4k clip only taking 58 seconds to finish. The 4060 using Nvidia’s NVENC takes over three minutes. Whilst if you use AMD’s VCN (Video Core Next) the B580 takes over a minute longer to complete, so depending on the encoding standard and actual quality, the performance varies quite a bit.
I would also usually run Cinebench rendering for a performance test, but Intel’s card is not supported, and you can’t even run the test.
Intel Arc B580 3DMark, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 HandBrake time taken, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 HandBrake average FPS, Image by PC Guide
Intel Arc B580 Blender 4.3 results, Image by PC Guide
Alternatives
If the B580 isn’t quite the right fit or you want to know what it’s up against, I’ve listed a few options. These are similar in performance to the Intel GPU or close in price, but being from AMD and Nvidia, they will have different efficiencies and features; you can read our reviews on them to learn more about them.
-
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060 OC
- GPU: AD107 die
- CUDA cores: 3,072
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6 VRAM
- Bandwidth: 272 GB/s
- Memory bus width: 128-bit memory bus
- Base clock speed: 1830 MHz
-
-
Zotac Gaming RTX 4060 Ti OC Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- GPU: AD106
- CUDA cores: 4,352
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6
- Bandwidth: 288.0 GB/s
- Memory bus width: 128-bit
- Base clock speed: 2310 MHz
-
Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 7700 XT
- GPU: Navi 32
- Stream Processors: 3,456
- VRAM: 12GB GDDR6
- Bandwidth: 432 GB/sec
- Memory bus width: 192-bit
- Base clock speed: 1,435 MHz
In direct comparison to the B580, you can consider the RTX 4060 and RX 7600. Choosing between these is the most likely scenario when building your PC with a similar price point. But the performance isn’t quite the same, and the B580 seemingly beats them both out for the most part for cheaper. Unless you’re after better rendering performance of the Nvidia card, the more limited capacity might not be ideal.
If you want something more powerful, the RTX 4060 Ti and RX 7700XT are a step up, with a more set 1440p performance. However, they jump up the price tag over the Intel GPU while still not providing a great value, considering that the base 4060 Ti still has 8GB of VRAM. At this rate, it might be best to wait for the next generation of cards to release along with the other Battlemage options that might provide better choices and competition.
Conclusion
- GPU: BGM-G21
- Shading units: 2,560
- VRAM: 12GB GDDR6
- Memory bus width: 192-bit
- Bandwidth: 456GB/s
- Base/Boost clock speed: 2,670/2,740 MHz
The Intel Arc B580 has breathed fresh air in the graphics card market. Providing something new and exciting where there’s been a bit of a stalemate between AMD and Nvidia. However, it’s still not perfect, with some hitches in compatibility and lacking performance in some areas. It’s an improvement over the Alchemist range and a solid option when picking a graphics card under $300.
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