Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition Review

1. Introduction2. Meet the Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition3. Testing Methodology4. Alan Wake II5. Black Myth: Wukong6. Cyberpunk 20777. Final Fantasy XVI8. Forza Horizon 59. Ghost of Tsushima10. Horizon Forbidden West11. The Last of Us Part 112. A Plague Tale: Requiem13. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 214. Starfield15. Total War: Warhammer III16. Performance Summary (12-Game Average)17. Cost Per Frame Analysis18. Ray Tracing: Alan Wake II19. Ray Tracing: Black Myth: Wukong20. Ray Tracing: Cyberpunk 207721. Ray Tracing: F1 2422. Ray Tracing: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart23. Ray Tracing: Returnal24. Ray Tracing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider25. Ray Tracing: Star Wars Outlaws26. Ray Tracing Performance Summary27. Clock Speed28. GPU Temperatures29. Acoustics30. Power Draw: 1080p31. Power Draw: 1440p32. Power Draw: 2160p (4K)33. Performance per Watt: 1080p34. Performance per Watt: 1440p35. Performance per Watt: 2160p (4K)36. Total System Power Draw37. Closing Thoughts38. View All Pages

Two years on from the launch of Intel's Alchemist discrete GPUs, the next generation has arrived in the form of the Battlemage series, and today we can present our review of the Intel Arc B580. Hitting the market at $249, Intel claims the B580 is 10% faster than the Nvidia RTX 4060, while also offering superior cost per frame, alongside a larger 12GB framebuffer. It certainly sounds good on paper, but as you might have guessed, there's plenty more to the story…

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:42 Recapping the Battlemage GPUs
01:15 B580 core spec
02:09 Test setup
03:20 Alan Wake 2
04:09 Black Myth: Wukong
04:32 Cyberpunk 2077
05:15 Final Fantasy XVI
05:49 Forza Horizon 5
06:18 Ghost of Tsushima – stutter alert!
07:14 Horizon Forbidden West
07:52 The Last of Us Part 1
08:14 Plague Tale: Requiem
08:53 Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
09:24 Starfield
09:58 Total War: Warhammer III
10:37 12-game average results
11:36 Cost per frame ($)
12:49 RT Alan Wake II
13:25 RT Black Myth: Wukong
13:59 RT Cyberpunk 2077, hard locks galore
14:46 RT F1 24, frame time issues
15:45 RT Ratchet & Clank, more issues
16:19 RT Returnal
16:39 RT Shadow of the Tomb Raider
17:00 RT Star Wars Outlaws, crash city
17:32 RT 8-game average
18:34 Intel’s B580 Limited Edition card
19:22 Thermals and noise
19:58 Power draw and efficiency in-depth
21:40 Idle power draw and a quick fix
22:26 Closing thoughts

It's safe to say Intel's first discrete GPUs got off to a rocky start. Both the A770 and A750 launched with a myriad of driver issues, while performance didn't exactly blow us away against the likes of the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 XT. To Intel's credit, things certainly improved for Alchemist in a relatively short time frame, but we were never fully able to give those GPUs a wholehearted recommendation.

Now Intel is hoping its Arc B580 will be able to win wider appeal. Targeting the sub-$300 market, an area many believe to have been neglected by AMD and Nvidia, the B580 is taking the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 head on. But are Intel's performance claims true? Does the B580's value proposition stack up at he $249 asking price? And what of the drivers? All that and more is covered in today's review…

If you want to read this review as a single page, click HERE.

	Arc B580	Arc A770	Arc A750	Arc A580	Arc A380
Silicon	BMG-G21	ACM-G10	ACM-G10	ACM-G10	ACM-G11
Process	TSMC N5	TSMC N6	TSMC N6	TSMC N6	TSMC N6
Render Slices	5	8	7	6	2
Xe Cores	20	32	28	24	8
Shaders	2560	4096	3584	3072	1024
XMX Engines	160	512	448	384	128
RT Units	20	32	28	24	8
Texture Units	160	256	224	192	64
ROPs	80	128	112	96	32
Graphics Clock	2670 MHz	2100 MHz	2050 MHz	1700 MHz	2000 MHZ
Memory Config	12GB GDDR6	8/16GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	6GB GDDR6
Memory Data Rate	19 Gbps	17.5 Gbps	16 Gbps	16 Gbps	15.5 Gbps
Memory Interface	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	96-bit
Memory Bandwidth	456 GB/s	560 GB/s	512 GB/s	512 GB/s	186 GB/s
PCIe Interface	Gen 4 x8	Gen 4 x16	Gen 4 x16	Gen 4 x16	Gen 4 x8
TBP	190W	225W	225W	185W	75W

First, it's worth recapping the specs for this new GPU. Built on the Xe2 architecture, the B580 uses Intel's BMG-G21 die, fabricated on TSMC's N5 node, and it has a die size of 272mm². Comprised of 5 render slices, that gives the chip a total of 20 Xe cores. Each Xe core offers 16 vector engines, with each vector engine housing eight FP32 ALUs, for a grand total of 2560. Each Xe core is accompanied by a Ray Tracing Unit, while we also find 160 TMUs and 80 ROPs.

The memory subsystem, meanwhile, is new for an Arc GPU. We find 12GB of GDDR6 operating over a 192-bit memory interface, and with memory speed at 19Gbps, total memory bandwidth hits 456 GB/s.

Intel has also been able to crank up the clock speed significantly with Battlemage, and the B580 has a rated graphics clock of 2670MHz, but a peak clock of 2850MHz.

Lastly, total board power is rated at 190W, something we look at closely in this review using our in-depth power testing methodology.

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