It’s not overtly spelled out, but there’s the whim that Intel’s new battlemagic GPU is being pitched as something the alchemist generation should have done. They eventually grew into PCIE shoes, but only after months of dial-shift driver updates, the flagship B580 promises off the performance of the NVIDIA Best Games. Even at this stage of current graphics generation (the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 could literally reveal tonight at CES 2025), there’s something fascinating about the proposition.
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Obviously, it helps that the B580 is not competing with the RTX 5090 or 5080. Instead, despite Intel’s suggestion that it is a 1440p machine, the B580 is the rival of the 1080p bopping RTX 4060. Here in the UK, even Nvidia’s GPUs have more or less deadly pricing ranges, with the cheapest £270 and the Intel’s own limited edition (tested here) at £300. Stateside is even cheaper, with the limited edition asking for $260 if most RTX 4060 models stick to about $300.
Negative Fortidol also happens to pay 4GB more VRAM than the 4060. While you need a reconfigurable bar to work properly, the Battlemage architecture also targets some of the alchemist’s weaknesses, and no longer for a DirectX 9 game that adjusts its raytraced score and has such a rebuttal and fear-like appearance. It all sounds lovely – Lord knows that the world can be done with a cheaper GPU, like the Radeon 7600 on AMD.
Intel Arc B580 Review: 1440p Benchmark
However, in the real game, it’s not as easy as slap Rebar by making the most of the ARC B580. First, I managed only somewhat decent display when paired with the Core i5-11600K of the RPS test rig with Intel’s 2560×1440 Rez. Apart from the advantages of a modest single-digit frame rate on Metro Exodus and F1 2022, it delivers roughly the same performance as the RTX 4060 from almost two years ago, even with all bonus memory.
The problem was I wanted to update the GPU benchmarking process for age. Most of these games are either replaced by sequels or reaching in teeth as long as the I5-11600K itself. So I decided to stop postponing it and try out the updated system using a new game and a PC based on the Core i9-13900K. It’s probably not a typical mass CPU, but it should not be more likely to bottleneck than the older i5.
By playing this younger, faster processor, the B580 transformed the drawing performance against the RTX 4060 into a clean sweep victory.
See that, shoot 12 fps backwards from behind 3fps behind the Tomb Raider of the Tomb Raider (granted and with different anti-aliasing). Also, with Metro Exodus, the RTX 4060 didn’t benefit from a CPU upgrade at all, but the ARC B580 claimed an additional 5FPS.
Unlike the Radeon 7600, unlike most AMD GPUs, the B580 can also make money on Nvidia with Ray Tracing. The ARC B580 running Cyberpunk 2077 with an upgrade rig with psycho-level RT effects and maximum quality upscaling is dead even using the RTX 4060 using DLSS. A flick of the super-quality raytraced traces in Metro’s Exodus, the ARC B850 kept the lead, earning 52fps on the RTX 4060’s 43fps. And it had no help with upscaling at all.
Intel Arc B580 Review: 1080p Benchmark
It’s not yet known whether the Arc B580 is the 1440p bargain that Intel calls – it’s obvious Competent That solution would just cut 60fps in a new game, and if you’re just 70 pounds or so, you’ll get a much faster RTX 4060 Ti. On the other hand, at the 1080p, all sails are smooth, even if the RTX 4060 is faster and faster on older test rigs.
However, with the Core I9-13900K, it’s another BattleMage victory, pulling multiple double-digit leads over the RTX 4060, slightly behind in Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Again, there was not much daylight between the two in the Cyberpunk 2077 test for Raytrace. The ARCB580 got 58FPS and the RTX 4060 got 59fps. The Ultra High Preset on F1 2024 also allows ray tracing by default, indicating that the ARC B580 can withstand additional strain without buckling.
Even if you’re not actively shopping at part-time, there are a lot of good things here, and you just want something to be deleted in one party state, a modern graphics card. Nvidia is no longer the only manufacturer that can trace Rey well, and we can’t argue that creating the fastest 300 pound cards of the current generation on Native Rez is no longer important anyway. The RTX 4060’s excellent power efficiency is not a challenge. The ArcB580 looks like a loser here. The 190W power draw rating and 600W PSU requirements reduce the 115W rating and 550W requirements of the 4060. However, in reality, the best that recorded the B580 drawing was only 118W, beating the 126W we saw on the 4060. This limited edition model similarly runs a cooler and is usually loaded at 63°C. That Nvidia rival flicked in the 69-74°C range.
As I say, good things. However, the ARC B580’s reliance on CPU BRAWN means that the individual’s perspective is applied much more sharply than the usual bar graph comparisons. Is this card suitable to take advantage of the new CPU Tech to get a performance advantage, or is it actually relaxing on the latest and most expensive chips that render to people on older PCs as non-starters?
Honestly, I think it’s a bit of both. With cheap graphics cards in mind that naturally tend to find a way to naturally age desktops, it is definitely not ideal for the best features of the ARC B580 to link up the upgrades of another relatively expensive component very closely. At the same time, the latest core i9 does not have a requirement to be carved into stone. My previous CPU tests suggest that the I9-13900K is not actually much faster than the midrange core i5-13600K. In other words, the ARC B580 could lose out on an older PC setup, but anyone who has been updated in the last few years will probably be fine.
Raytracing isn’t the only thing Intel is catching up to. Currently released and working only on F1 24, but the latest version of Upscaling Tech, like Xess 2 – DLSS, offers another tool for the ARC B580 to crank up frame rates. So far, Xess 2 appears to be a DLSS match on general visual quality, considering the long-standing attempts and failures of the AMD FSR. Its new frame generation component also does the impressive job of recreating the AI-generated smoothness of DLSS 3. Even defeating it. 45fps at 1440p went 80fps on Xess 2 on, and 1080p was induced from 56fps to 102fps, both of which saw the RTX 4060 generated by DLSS 3 rise above 57fps and 77fps respectively.
Again, AMD has tried something very similar to the FSR 3, but Xess 2 appears to produce good looking results without adding input lag. I’d like to try the Xess 2 with more tweaks than the gamepad-controlled racer, but what the F1 24 has shown so far is encouraging.
What made me crazy was that DLSS 3 had a big start with game support and is now available for over 100 games. It’s hard to see Xess 2 catch up to this point. That is, DLSS 3 remains a more valuable feature, and its value is transferred to a GPU that supports it, including the RTX 4060.
Therefore, the ARC B580 does not discontinue the RTX 4060. Nvidia could potentially maintain its first dib on its own, using the inevitable RTX 5060. GeForce says the fact that there is no profit from the new chip won’t be lost even with the old chip, which is a safe bet for the 1080p rig using last year’s CPU.
Conversely, for all-new builds (or PCs that are fresh outside of GPU), the ARC B580 is a legitimate option. In fact, it’s probably better if you can live without the more widely available frame Gen flavor. In addition to fixing the raytracing weakness of the alchemist and generally stabilizing everything, I did not experience the crash I did with the ARC A750 – the Battlemage architecture produced a lively and affordable GPU that was comfortable enough for the Slick 1080p. And you don’t even need to update 20 drivers to get there.
This review is based on retail units provided by the manufacturer.