Intel announces new graphics cards, making gaming PCs affordable again

©Intel

This is the news that is shaking up the PC gaming world. Intel has just made its new generation of Battlemage graphics cards official. Two models have been announced: the Arc B580 and the Arc B570, sold for $249 and $219 respectively. Prices that make the competition pale, especially Nvidia whose RTX 4060 is priced at $299. But price is not Intel's only argument.

Performance that exceeds expectations

The star of this announcement, the Arc B580, impresses with its technical specifications. With its 20 Xe cores, 20 ray tracing units and 160 XMX AI engines, it promises 10% better performance than the RTX 4060 in 1440p. Intel has not skimped on memory either: 12 GB of GDDR6 with a 192-bit interface, i.e. a bandwidth significantly higher than that of the RTX 4060 T and its 8 GB of VRAM.

The manufacturer places particular emphasis on ray tracing performance. On Forza Motorsport for example, the B580 displays 64% higher framerates than the RTX 4060 with Ultra RT settings. A difference that can be explained in particular by the revised architecture of the RT engines, offering up to twice the performance of the previous generation on certain operations.

A perfect timing to shake up the market

Intel is arriving at the right time in a segment that has been neglected by the competition. The RTX 3060 Ti, once the queen of affordable 1440p gaming, has never really found a successor. The RTX 4060 Ti, hampered by its memory interface, struggles to convince despite its $399 price tag. AMD is not doing much better with its RX 7600 XT.

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Intel’s new GPUs could well fill this void. The B580 and B570 come with specs that are geared toward 1440p gaming, a resolution that is increasingly popular among PC gamers. All at prices that hark back to the pre-shortage era, when graphics cards were still affordable to most.

Intel’s Gradual Rise

This announcement marks an important step in Intel’s strategy in the graphics card market. The Battlemage architecture, which succeeds Alchemist, brings its share of improvements: better efficiency, optimized use of graphics cores and increased performance in ray tracing and AI. Intel is also introducing XeSS 2, its upscaling technology that competes with Nvidia’s DLSS.

Manufacturers Acer, ASRock, Gunnir, Maxsun, Onix and Sparkle will offer their customized versions of the B580 and B570. The B580 will be available from December 13, 2024, followed by the B570 on January 16, 2025. A relatively short launch window before the likely arrival of Nvidia's RTX 5000, but which could be enough for Intel to establish itself in the mid-range segment. It remains to be seen the benchmarks of the specialized press in order to verify if Intel keeps all its promises here.

• Intel launches two affordable graphics cards: the B580 at $249 and the B570 at $219, with no French pricing announced yet
• The B580 outperforms the RTX 4060 by 10% in 1440p with impressive ray tracing performance
• Availability planned for December 2024, with customized versions by several manufacturers

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