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The Intel Arc B580 is great value for money

13.12.2024

Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson

Arc B580 is the first graphics card from Intel’s new Battlemage generation. Initial reviews confirm the card’s significant leap in performance compared to the previous generation – even if the software’s still an issue.

Intel announced 50 per cent higher performance per watt before release. Indeed, the GPU classified as mid-range by Intel even beats the previous generation’s top model, the Arc A770.

Gaming: the B580 beats the RTX 4060 in two out of three tests

German language tech magazine Computerbase has found that the B580 offers a whopping 18 per cent more FPS in 1080p resolution than the Arc A770. The new model even outperforms its predecessor, the A580, by 39 per cent. Compared to the Radeon RX 7600, the competition from AMD, the B580 is in the lead by half a per cent. However, it’s beaten by the Nvidia RTX 4060 by six per cent. This was measured in classic rasteriser scenarios. Thanks to its 12 gigabytes of VRAM, however, the Intel card outperformed the RTX 4060 by three per cent in raytracing scenarios. This is despite Nvidia having the stronger raytracing technology.

The differences to the competition were even greater in the Techpowerup test. Here, the B580 is five per cent ahead of the RTX 4060 and 15 per cent ahead of the RX 7600 in rasteriser games in 1080p resolution. In terms of ray tracing, however, the test puts the Arc B580 behind the competition from Intel.

At Tespot, the B580 is, once again, seven per cent ahead of the RTX 4060 and eight per cent ahead of the RX 7600. Even if this is a success for Intel, you need to bear in mind that the cards from AMD and Nvidia have already been on the market for over a year and a half and will soon be replaced.

Computerbase also points out that there are still crashes due to software problems. However, the problem’s also said to be much smaller than it was at the launch of the first dedicated graphics card generation from Intel. In any case, AMD and Nvidia seem to come with fewer hiccups.

Power consumption: great progress compared to the previous generation

According to Techpowerup, the B580 requires significantly less power than the Arc A770 with 235 watts (185 watts). In spite of this, the competition from AMD and Nvidia’s still more efficient. The RTX 4060 only requires 128 watts under load and the RX 7600 is at 154 watts. The improved power consumption is also confirmed by Techspot’s review.

Computerbase (article in German) also attests to the card’s better power consumption – especially in idle mode under Windows. However, the card still requires far too much electrical power «out of the box». To change this, ASPM needs to be configured in the BIOS and you need to adjust the energy-saving plan in Windows.

Price: best value for money in its class

Computerbase (article in German) is the only magazine that says the B580 isn’t great value for money. They say the same about the RTX 4060 and the RX 7600.

Techspot calls the B580 an excellent deal. Their reasoning being that the card’s 21 per cent cheaper per frame than the RX 7600 and costs 27 per cent less than the RTX 4060. Techpowerup also calls it excellent value for money.

Header image: Youtube / Paul's Hardware

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Kevin Hofer

Senior Editor

kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.ch

From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.

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