The first graphics card in Intel’s next-gen Battlemage line-up releases tomorrow – the Intel Arc B580 is available to buy on December 13th. Pre-orders have been live for a little while already, and some customers have been getting their cards delivered earlier than expected.
In any case, reviews for the GPU have finally been published and it looks like everyone seems to agree on one thing for certain: it offers excellent value for money. Intel wasn’t lying when it said the B580 “wins in value” when you compare it to the likes of the RTX 4060 and RX 7600.
Intel Arc B580 review roundup
We’ve rounded up a few reviews and taken a closer look at benchmarks to see exactly what it offers.
TechPowerUp
We see TechPowerUp as one of the best resources if you’re looking for detailed launch day benchmarks and they herald the B580 as “excellent value” with a $250 price tag that should give Intel some time to grab some sales away from the existing RTX 4060 and RX 7600/7600 XT from Nvidia and AMD respectively. We hope to see a shake-up of the GPU market and the B580 is one reason for that – a nice change considering Intel’s share is practically non-existent comparatively.
Looking at the graph above, we can see that the Intel Arc B580 offers an average of 83 FPS at 1080p across a range of games. Overall, this puts it just below the RTX 3060 Ti and above the RX 7600 XT in terms of hierarchy. Plus, looking at performance per dollar, the B580 at $250 is only beaten by the last-gen A580 at $170. With 12GB of VRAM and solid performance in both 1080p and 1440p on display, the B580 earns its “highly recommended” and “great value” badges from TechPowerUp.
IGN
Moving on to IGN which says that the Intel Arc B580 is “a budget card that doesn’t suck for once.” According to the review, it’s “hard to imagine” any other GPU competing at its price point any time soon. We’re yet to see what Nvidia and AMD have to offer in the next generation of discrete GPUs, but the expectation that Intel will continue to offer the best value for money is pretty strong at the moment.
Earning a score of 9 out of 10, it’s pretty obvious that Intel has done something right. That’s a relief considering the sub-par response to their recent Core Ultra CPUs (including the flagship 285K). There are some downsides though, as the B580 falls behind in certain games compared to the competition – this includes Black Ops 6, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and most notably Black Myth: Wukong. This goes to show the higher level of optimization more well-established brands like Nvidia and AMD have; Intel is generally playing catch-up when it comes to driver support too.
PCWorld
Last, but not least, we wanted to feature this review by PCWorld, which calls it “the first worthy budget GPU of the decade,” again echoing the great-value sentiment. Giving the card a 4.5 out of 5-star rating, the 12GB memory is praised for helping unlock solid performance at both 1080p and 1440p in modern titles, one such example being Cyberpunk 2077. At the ultra preset with no upscaling or raytracing, the B580 offers an average of 62 FPS at 1440p, a noticeable improvement over the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 and 42 FPS and 50 FPS, respectively.
Another promising sign is that unlike the Intel Arc A-Series launch with its bug-riddled driver support, the B-series looks much more promising at launch. The prior issues are understandable given it was a first-gen launch, so Intel has had plenty of time to clear out any issues. Worth mentioning though that PCWorld also experienced “lower than expected performance” in Black Ops 6 and Black Myth: Wukong.
Is the Intel Arc B580 worth buying?
It’s evident that Intel is on to a winner with the Arc B580 and it’s definitely worth buying if you’re in the market for a budget GPU right now. XeSS 2 with its frame generation and low latency upgrades is also an important part of the new Battlemage series, though support for these technologies is still being rolled out with a limited amount of games on board at the moment. So far, we’ve already seen F1 24 confirming support, with ten current and upcoming games in total revealed by Intel.
If you’re in no rush, you can always bide your time and see what Nvidia and AMD have to offer in early 2025 – both companies are expected to launch new GPUs at CES in January.
