The B580 marks the debut of Intel’s second-generation Arc-Xe2 GPUs. The be will joined next month. Based on their specs alone, it’s easy to see why they’re a must-have for budget gaming. The B580 has 20 Xe cores, 20 ray tracing units. A higher clock speed than previous Arc cards. More importantly, it has 12GB of VRAM with a 192-bit memory interface, providing more than enough space for 1440p gaming.
By comparison, the $299 NVIDIA RTX 4060 comes with 8GB of VRAM. A much more limited 128-bit interface. The RTX 4060 Ti also has very little VRAM, limiting both GPUs mainly to 1080p gaming (especially if you want some ray tracing). AMD’s Radeon RX 7600, which costs around $269, comes with 8GB of RAM. Weaker ray tracing performance than NVIDIA. Intel cards.
While Intel has a clear advantage in hardware, time is again a big issue. The Arc B580 was launched ahead of CES 2025, where NVIDIA. AMD are expected to unveil new desktop GPUs. Given NVIDIA’s ever-rising prices, I wouldn’t bet on an RTX 5060 around $250,. AMD is a different story. It has been trying to carve out a niche in the low-. Mid-range GPU market for years,. That would continue to be the case with its RDNA 4 cards. There’s a good chance we’ll see a cheap next-gen AMD GPU sooner. Later.
But if you need to build a cheap gaming machine in the next month, the Arc B580 will serve you well. In my tests, it slightly outperformed the RTX 4060 Ti in 3DMark’s Timespy Extreme benchmark. Was also significantly faster than the Radeon 7600. With ray tracing, the B580 shone even brighter. I averaged 58 fps Cyberpunk 2077 Compared to 1080p with Ultra graphics settings. Mid-range ray tracing. The Radeon 7600, on the other hand, sometimes struggles to stay above 40fps at similar settings.
I was very surprised at how well the Arc B580 handled gaming at 1440p. IN Dragon Age: Guardian of the Veil, With high graphics settings, medium ray tracing. Intel XeSS scaling enabled, I averaged 70 fps. That’s better performance than you’ll see on the $700 PlayStation 5 Pro (. Sony’s improved PSSR AI might seem better to you). I also averaged 85 fps when playing infinite halo at 1440p with maximum graphics, slightly better than the 4060 Ti. While we’re used to budget cards usually being limited to 1080p gaming, the Arc B580 is clearly capable of 1440p thanks to the extra memory.
However, competition offers advantages. NVIDIA’s RTX GPU can also work with special applications such as NVIDIA Broadcaster, which can clean up audio. Video for streaming. Recording. Additionally, NVIDIA’s DLSS 3 enhancement is available for over 500 games,.
Intel’s
The Arc B580 also survived several hours of benchmark testing. Gaming without any hardware. Driver issues. When I first tested the Arc A750. A770, they often crashed within an hour of testing. Intel’s software has clearly made progress. The B580 reference model I tested also stayed relatively cool under load, never rising above 64 degrees Celsius (which also kept the two large fans from making too much noise). Robust, not cheap. Plasticky like many other budget GPUs.
At this point, it appears that Intel is already struggling to keep the Arc B580 in stock, a rare problem for the struggling chip giant.
While there will be third-party cards, I was also impressed with Intel’s reference design: the B580 feels premium. It’s easy to see why gamers are. Excited: it offers solid 1080p. 1440p performance for most new titles, even with some ray tracing. Finally, there’s a useful $250 GPU that won’t leave you hopelessly behind. This is a clear win for Intel, at least until we see what happens next for AMD.
