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It's been over two years since Intel's first-generation Alchemist GPUs hit the market, but the time has now come for Battlemage. Launching first with the B580, this 12GB GPU is priced at $249 and it is clearly Intel's best discrete GPU to-date.
That all starts with the performance, as it turns out Intel's overall claims were pretty accurate. For 1080p gaming, we found the B580 to be 9% faster on average than Nvidia's RTX 4060, while it's 4% ahead of the AMD RX 7600 XT. That works out as a 29% gen-on-gen uplift versus the A750, and it's only 13% behind the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB.
Interestingly, the B580 scales better versus the competition at 1440p, where we found it to be 16% faster on average than the RTX 4060 and 9% ahead of the RX 7600 XT. The snag is it lacks the GPU horsepower required to be properly effective at that resolution, at least not without enabling XeSS or lowering image quality settings.
Black Myth: Wukong aside, ray tracing performance is also generally competitive with the RTX 4060, while the B580 is streets ahead of the RX 7600 XT in this area. I'd still argue that raster performance is the most important factor for a GPU of this class, as overall frame rates aren't particularly high when RT is enabled, but there is clearly scope to experiment if you are happy to tinker with upscaling.
That performance data translates into a favourable value analysis, too, at least when looking at prices in the US. Based on current dollar pricing, we found the B580 offers a 13% improvement to cost per frame when compared against the RX 7600, and that stretches to a 21% margin up against the RTX 4060. It's impressive stuff and highlights just how far Intel has come in the dGPU market.
As you might have guessed, there is a but coming, and the way I see it, it's a two-fold problem. The first thing to consider is that we are comparing the B580 to current-gen products from AMD and Nvidia which are nearing the end of their life cycle. The likes of the RX 7600 and RTX 4060, for instance, have already been on the market for eighteen months. If rumours are to be believed, both AMD and Nvidia will unveil their next-gen architectures in January, with a possible RTX 5060 rumoured for March or April 2025.
Of course, nothing is a given in this industry until it happens, but I do think it's a fair point to make that the B580 is going up against some now fairly tired competition. Yes, it does look like good value today, but it's simply realistic to suggest that most of the B580's life cycle will be in competition with RDNA 4 and the RTX 50-series, rather than products on the market right now, so it will have to continue offering impressive value well into the future.
The other factor that needs discussion is, of course, Intel's drivers. We've seen how far things have come in this regard, and I have no doubt that things will continue to get better. The fact remains that, unfortunately, I've just had too many headaches over the last week to be able to put this area of discussion to bed.
During this review period I've encountered non-stop game crashes in Star Wars Outlaws, hard locks in Cyberpunk 2077 when ray tracing is enabled, inconsistent frametimes in F1 24 and Ghost of Tsushima, woeful ray tracing performance in Black Myth: Wukong, alongside performance grinding to a near-standstill in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Even frame generation stopped working in the only game that currently supports Intel's implementation of the technology! It doesn't help that Intel provided us with no less than four drivers over the review period, something which just gives the impression the B580 isn't ready for prime time, and the driver team has been scrambling to catch up as a result. Even now, certain games are basically unplayable on the GPU, and that's never a good place to be at launch.
To give Intel their due, I believe them when they say they are committed to continuously improving – we've already seen Alchemist comes on leaps and bounds. But even then, this last week has shown me that competing products like the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 will offer a better experience in terms of game stability across the board, and that means we can't yet recommend this new GPU outright. The B580 clearly has potential, so if Intel can quickly establish a positive track record for Battlemage with its driver releases, that could change in the future – but right now, there is much more work for Intel to do.
The B580 will be available at retail as of December 13th, with an MSRP of $249.
Update: The B580 Limited Edition is up for pre-order at £248.99 from OCUK HERE.
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Pros
- Generally faster than the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 for rasterisation.
- Ray tracing performance is competitive with RTX 4060 and miles ahead of the RX 7600 (if the game doesn't crash!)
- 12GB VRAM is great for the price.
- Enticing value proposition at $249.
- Efficiency has come on hugely since Alchemist.
- Quiet and cool Limited Edition card.
Cons
- Drivers remain a real battle for the B580, with some games completely unplayable at launch.
- Other titles exhibited frame time issues, generally low performance or graphical glitches.
- Next-gen GPUs are on the horizon from both AMD and Nvidia, which could affect the B580's value proposition.
- Efficiency still lags behind the RTX 40-series.
KitGuru says: Arc has come a long way since the launch of Alchemist, and while the B580 shows clear promise, there is still plenty of work to be done if Intel wants to crack the mainstream market.
