Intel Arc B580 Review, There is a hint that Intel’s new Battlemage GPUs are being marketed as what the Alchemist generation ought to have been, even though this isn’t stated explicitly. After months of dial-shifting driver upgrades, those finally outperformed their PCIe counterparts; in contrast, the flagship B580 guarantees Nvidia-best gaming performance right out of the box. There is something alluring about that offer, even at this point in the current graphics generation (the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 may be unveiled tonight at CES 2025).
The B580’s lack of competition with the RTX 5090 or 5080, which will undoubtedly cost roughly the same as the number of Fabergé eggs you’d need to smash to produce an unpleasantly sharp wedding cake, is obviously helpful. The B580 is actually a 1080p opponent to the RTX 4060, even though Intel claims it is a 1440p computer.
Intel Arc B580 Review,Even with Nvidia’s GPU, the price range is pretty much dead here in the UK, with the cheapest starting at £270 and Intel’s own Limited Edition (which is being tested here) costing £300. In the US, it’s even less expensive; the Limited Edition costs just $260, whereas the majority of RTX 4060 versions cost approximately $300.
Additionally, the B580 has 12GB of GDDR6 and 4GB more VRAM than the 4060 for only forty dollars less. Although it still needs Resizeable BAR to function effectively, the Battlemage architecture fixes a number of Alchemist’s flaws by improving its ray tracing cores and removing the disgusted and terrified gaze that DirectX 9 games once had. All of this sounds great, but the world could really need more inexpensive GPUs that aren’t as useless as AMD’s Radeon 7600.
Intel Arc B580 review: 1440p benchmarks
However, maximizing the Arc B580’s performance in games is more complicated than just turning on ReBAR. First, it only accomplished a passably good performance when combined with the RPS test rig’s Core i5-11600K at Intel’s suggested resolution of 2560×1440. Even with all that more memory, it barely outperforms the almost two-year-old RTX 4060, save for slight, single-digit framerate gains in Metro Exodus and F1 2022.
The problem is that, given that the majority of these games are either being replaced by sequels or are becoming about as outdated as the i5-11600K itself, I’ve been wanting to update our GPU benchmarking procedure for a very long time. Consequently, I made the decision to quit delaying and attempt a new system with updated games and a PC built around the Core i9-13900K. It may not be as reflective of the public as the previous i5, but it should be less likely to bottleneck.
The B580 transformed its mediocre performance against the RTX 4060 into a decisive win thanks to its younger, quicker processor:
Watch it go from 3 frames per second behind in Shadow of the Tomb Raider (although with different anti-aliasing) to 12 frames per second ahead. Additionally, the Arc B580 claimed an additional 5 frames per second in Metro Exodus, while the RTX 4060 benefited absolutely from the CPU boost.
at contrast to the Radeon 7600 and the majority of AMD GPUs, the B580 can also compete with Nvidia at ray tracing. Even with the RTX 4060 using DLSS, the Arc B580 averaged 39 frames per second when running Cyberpunk 2077 on the upgraded setup with Psycho-level RT effects and max-quality upscaling. The Arc B850 maintained its edge while switching to Ultra-quality ray tracing in Metro Exodus, achieving 52 frames per second compared to the RTX 4060’s 43 frames per second. Additionally, that was without any upscaling help at all.
Intel Arc B580 review: 1080p benchmarks
I’m still not convinced that the Arc B580 is the 1440p deal that Intel claims it is; although it is obviously capable at that resolution, it is still barely achieving 60 frames per second in more recent games. For just £70 more, you could purchase the considerably faster RTX 4060 Ti. Even if the RTX 4060 is frequently quicker on the outdated test gear, everything runs well down at 1080p.
But with the Core i9-13900K, Battlemage has won again, outperforming the RTX 4060 by several double digits and behind only Assassin’s Creed Mirage by a slim margin.
In the ray-traced Cyberpunk 2077 test, the Arc B580 achieved 58 frames per second, while the RTX 4060 achieved 59. Additionally, when Ultra RT was activated in Metro Exodus, Intel’s GPU continued to outperform the GeForce, achieving 149 frames per second compared to 142 frames per second. Ray tracing is also enabled by default in F1 2024’s Ultra High mode, demonstrating that the Arc B580 can tolerate the increased strain without buckling.
Even if you’re not actively purchasing and just want to see something challenge the one-party state that is modern graphics cards, there’s a lot of excellent things here. Ray tracing is no longer just the domain of Nvidia, and the company can no longer categorically claim to be the fastest sub-£300 card of the current generation—at native rez, nonetheless. The Arc B580 seems to be the loser in this case, with its 190W power draw rating and 600W PSU demand dwarfing that of the 4060’s 115W rating and 550W requirement.
This shows that even the RTX 4060’s exceptional power efficiency is not uncontested. However, in reality, the maximum power I measured on the B580 drawing was only 118W, which was higher than the 126W I observed on the 4060. Under load, this Limited Edition model operates even cooler, usually maintaining a temperature of 63°C; its Nvidia competitor fluctuated between 69 and 74°C.
Good stuff, as I say. The Arc B580’s dependence on CPU power, however, also makes personal perspective far more relevant than it would be for standard bar graph comparisons. Is this card able to take advantage of newer CPU technology to get a performance edge, or is it actually linked to the newest, priciest processors in a way that makes it incompatible with older PCs?
To be honest, I believe it’s a combination of both. Given that less expensive graphics cards are more likely to be found in otherwise aging desktop computers, it is undoubtedly not ideal for the Arc B580’s greatest features to be directly related to the improvement of another, more costly component. Nevertheless, it’s not as though the newest Core i9 has a set need.
The i9-13900K isn’t really that much quicker than the mid-range Core i5-13600K, which is only slightly faster than the Core i5-12600K, which is now three generations old, according to my earlier CPU tests. To put it another way, the Arc B580 might not work as well on an older PC configuration, but anyone who has updated in the recent several years will likely be fine.
Intel is also catching up in areas other than ray tracing. Although XeSS 2, the most recent iteration of their DLSS-like upscaling technology, is only available and operational in F1 24, it gives the Arc B580 an additional tool to boost framerates. Thus far, XeSS 2 appears to be on par with DLSS in terms of overall visual quality, which is quite an accomplishment given AMD FSR’s years of trying and failing.
Its new frame generation component also performs a fantastic job of reproducing the AI-generated smoothness boost found in DLSS 3. Even beating it. With XeSS 2 enabled, the 45 fps at 1440 p increased to 80 fps, and at 1080 p it increased from 56 fps to 102 fps, both of which were higher than the 57 fps and 77 fps that the RTX 4060 generated produced with DLSS 3.
With FSR 3, AMD tried something somewhat similar once more, however XeSS 2 appears to yield better-looking results with less input lag. Though what F1 24 has shown thus far is encouraging, I would be eager to test out XeSS 2 in something more twitchy than a racer controlled by a gamepad.
Intel Arc B580 Review, The catch is that DLSS 3 has a significant advantage in terms of game compatibility; it is now accessible in more than 100 titles and has dozens more in the works. Since it’s unlikely that XeSS 2 will ever catch up, DLSS 3 will always be a more desirable feature, which benefits the GPUs that enable it, such as the RTX 4060.
Therefore, the RTX 4060 is not entirely rendered obsolete by the Arc B580. With the impending RTX 5060, Nvidia is probably going to have the first say in accomplishing that itself. Since the GeForce doesn’t profit as much from newer chips, it also won’t suffer as much from older chips, making it a safer option for 1080p setups that still use CPUs from the past.
On the other hand, the Intel Arc B580 Review is a genuine substitute for brand-new systems (or PCs that have been updated without the GPU). If you can live without a more accessible flavor of frame gen, this is arguably the better one. In addition to resolving Alchemist’s ray tracing issue and generally stabilizing everything, the Battlemage architecture has provided a wonderfully peppy, reasonably priced GPU that is more than sufficient for smooth 1080p. I haven’t encountered any of the crashing that I did with the Arc A750. To get there, it doesn’t even require twenty driver upgrades.