Intel presents the graphics cards that will compete with Nvidia and AMD in the entry-level range: “A good GPU for only $249”

The new Intel Battlemage GPU line, which includes the budget Arc B580 and B570 graphics cards, aims to capture the entry-level GPU market. These are the graphics cards that modest gamers buy to enjoy their favorite games without the need for 4K or Raytracing.

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This new line claims to be 24% faster than the previous generation A750 GPU. And perhaps the most important aspect of Intel cards is their memory, with 12 GB of memory at the high end compared to the 8 GB of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060.

Furthermore, the company claims that the B580 will have 20 Xe2 cores (with a graphics architecture similar to Intel’s Lunar Lake CPUs), five render slices, 20 ray tracing units, and a clock speed of 2.67 GHz. It also has a memory bandwidth of 456 GB/s and a power consumption of 190 W.

Everything we know about the new Intel Arc B580 and B570 graphics cards

It uses the old PCIe 4.0 x8 connection, so any owner of an older PC model won’t have to worry about switching to PCIe 5.0. The Limited Edition model presented by Intel also includes a single 8-pin power connection.

Intel faced its latest cards against the 4060 and AMD RX 7600, which were released in the spring of 2023. However, Intel’s goal is its performance per price. Intel says the Arc B580 starts at 250 dollars. For that price, Intel claims it has better ray tracing performance compared to the mid-range offerings from Team Red or Team Green.

Intel’s gaming benchmarks tell an interesting story. Team Blue claims that you will get 10% more performance in games than with the 4060. That could mean an average difference of about 15 frames in a game like Control or place a game like Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077 above 60 FPS, surpassing the popular RTX 4060.

That doesn’t mean it always wins. Intel’s benchmarks show that the Nvidia card still won in games like Gears of War 5 and Counter-Strike 2. That was on a PC setup with an Intel Core i9-14900K CPU.

The A750 hit the market for just under 300 dollars, which makes the price of the B850 even more attractive. Even so, we would have liked to see benchmark tests between AMD and Intel offerings, but we will have to wait for the reviews.

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The Intel Arc B580, the most impressive one, will be available starting December 13 for 249 dollars, while the Intel Arc B570, priced at 220 dollars, won’t arrive until January 16. Until then, proceed with caution, but it’s always good news to have new graphics cards entering the market.