Intel's foray into consumer desktop graphics cards is one of the most interesting graphics-industry events in a long time, finally introducing a fresh alternative to AMD or Nvidia. The chipmaker's first-generation "Alchemist" GPUs weren't terrible, but they didn't win any performance crowns and showed expected growing pains around driver support. They were notable for their relatively budget-friendly prices and as a novel third option for desktop graphics.

Intel's "Battlemage" GPUs tell a starkly different story. The budget pricing remains, with Intel's new Arc B580, the first of its second-generation cards, undercutting its competitors at $249. Simultaneously, performance is up, power consumption is down, and the driver issues that plagued Alchemist are much improved. Though the future is uncertain, and Nvidia is nothing if not a flush, formidable competitor, we argue that the Arc B580 is the best budget graphics card on the market at the end of 2024 and the best graphics card for 1080p gaming of the moment, overtaking the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 as our Editors' Choice award winner for mainstream graphics cards. For now.

To create Battlemage, Intel heavily modified its existing Alchemist graphics architecture rather than starting from scratch. This makes the two architectures look much alike. Both are structured similarly, with the names of key function blocks, like the matrix engines, unchanged. When you dig deeper, though, you'll see Battlemage is far more robust, with most aspects tweaked to enable more powerful throughput and bandwidth.

In an earlier article, we covered several aspects of the Battlemage architecture if you'd like more detail. To briefly summarize, Battlemage features second-generation Xe cores with arithmetic logic units (ALUs), the primary workhorses of the GPU, that now natively run SIMD16 instructions. This enables them to crunch even more series of numbers per single instruction and, therefore, do so more quickly than Alchemist could. (Alchemist's vector engines were only SIMD8 units, meaning each vector engine functioned like eight more-traditional shading units.)

Battlemage's vector engines are similar, except that now each of them acts like 16 traditional shading units. The GPU also has Intel's second-generation ray-tracing units, improved compression technology to save on bandwidth, more powerful geometry hardware that triples Alchemist's vertex-fetch and mesh-shading performance, and larger internal caches, among other improvements.

While from on high, Battlemage and Alchemist may look similar, due to these changes their performance and inner workings are significantly different. Energy efficiency has also improved considerably. We'll delve more into that later as we put this to the test, but Intel's claim is Battlemage delivers 70% better performance overall and 50% better performance-per-watt compared with Alchemist.

All B580 graphics cards employ the BMG-G21 GPU die, which has 160 vector engines, equivalent to 2,560 shaders. It also has 20 texture samplers and 10 pixel backends, equal to 160 texture mapping units (TMUs) and 80 raster operation processors (ROPs). Intel didn't provide a reference base clock for this GPU, but its peak operating clock is rated for 2,850MHz, with 2,670MHz reported as a "game clock," or the clock speed the GPU will sit close to most of the time while gaming.

The BMG-G21 also features a 192-bit wide memory interface for GDDR6 RAM. The Limited Edition card uses 19Gbps GDDR6 chips, which give the card an effective memory bandwidth of 456GBps. The card also has 12GB of GDDR6 available, which feels like plenty based on the tests we ran.

Its rated power consumption is 190 watts, and the card requires a single 8-pin PCI Express power-supply connection. More power is available over the PCIe connection and from the motherboard's PCIe slot, giving plenty of power headroom for overclocking.

We received our B580 test sample directly from Intel. Its Arc B580 Limited Edition is plain-looking overall, with a simple black exterior, two fans over a heatsink, and a set of heat pipes. Other designs will vary in design and cost, with Intel partnering with Acer, ASRock, Gunnir, Maxsun, Sparkle, and Onix Technology to create unique versions of the card. One aspect that's unlikely to change from model to model is the rear I/O bracket, which has three DisplayPorts (supporting DisplayPort 2.1) and a single HDMI 2.1 port.

We tested the Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition on our current GPU testbed, which has an Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard topped by an Intel Core i9-12900K processor and a Corsair Hydro series H100X thermal solution. The system has 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM clocked at 5,600MHz in a dual-channel configuration and a 1TB Corsair MP600 Pro NVMe 4.0 SSD as the primary storage device. A Corsair HX1500i 1,500-watt 80 Plus Platinum power supply powers the system, and we run all tests in Windows 11 with the latest system updates installed.

Priced at $249, the B580 has a mixed array of competitors. First and foremost are the AMD Radeon RX 7600, starting at $269, and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, starting at $299. These GPUs are the marks to beat for the B580 to gain ground for Intel. You also have the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT, the same card as the RX 7600 with extra RAM and a mild overclock.

Last are Intel's previous A-series graphics cards. Of particular note are the Arc A770 (launching at $349 for our 16GB test model), the Arc A750 ($289), and the Arc A580 ($179). Given the name, you might expect the Arc A580 to be the B580's closest competitor, but Intel mainly compares it with the A750, suggesting the B580 will almost always beat that first-generation card. This is interesting as the A750, on paper, has more shaders and bandwidth. We've included tests for both in the charts below.

Synthetic test results don't always indicate real-world performance, but they can still give us some idea of how GPUs compare. Starting with 3DMark, the B580 frankly killed it. The B580 was far slower than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super, included here as it's the current next step up in Nvidia's line from the RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti, but it was on par with the $399 Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. It also seemed to be close in performance to the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, but that card had issues running the Port Royal test, leaving us with an incomplete picture.

LuxMark gives us an idea about GPGPU performance; here, the B580 didn't perform quite as well. It was on par with the vanilla RTX 4060 this time but much slower than Intel's last-generation Arc cards. Intel has more experience making GPUs for computing purposes, so it could be that the Arc Alchemist cards benefited from those earlier designs. At the same time, the B580 moved away from focusing on computing performance for better gaming speeds.

In Unigine's Superposition test, the B580 once again competed closer to the RTX 4060 Ti, beating it in the OpenGL test by a small percentage.

Intel's Arc Alchemist cards showed relatively potent ray-tracing performance, surprising us at launch. The Battlemage-based Arc B580 has fewer ray-tracing units than Intel's A750 GPU (20 units versus 28), but each ray-tracing unit in Battlemage is reportedly twice as fast as those in Alchemist. Given this information and the other architectural improvements, we expect to see impressive performance in the following tests focused on ray-tracing games.

We saw considerable generational performance growth when comparing Intel's B580 with the A750 in F1 22. The B580 had an even more significant advantage over the Radeon RX 7600 at all resolutions in the game, as the RX 7600 was a little slower than the A750.

As for the RTX 4060, here, the B580 ran into stiffer competition. Though the B580 was still faster than the RTX 4060, its performance advantage varied based on resolution, with the two cards performing more similarly at 1080p and the B580 pulling further ahead as the resolution increased.

You might think this situation will reverse when using frame-generation technology, but not so. Enabling DLSS 2 or FSR 1.0 didn't change how the B580 compared with the AMD Radeon RX 7600, but the RTX 4060 fell much further behind at 1440p and 4K. Here, the B580 even surpassed the RTX 4060 Ti. Using DLSS 3 with frame generation versus FSR 2.0, which does not support it, helped the RTX 4060 close the gap, but nowhere near enough to challenge the B580.

Returnal also showed the B580 with a healthy lead over its competition. It performed nearly identical to the Radeon RX 7700 XT, a much more expensive card at $449. It also nearly tied the RTX 4060 Ti at 1080p and 1440p, and then performed twice as fast at 4K. This was not an error: AMD's ray-tracing hardware isn't nearly as powerful as Intel's, while the RTX 4060 Ti has a painfully limited 128-bit memory interface that causes performance to nose-dive when you push up the resolution.

The B580's performance advantage over the Arc A750 varied depending on resolution, with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 again even further behind. Nvidia's RTX 4060 performed much better than the RX 7600, but the B580 was faster at all resolutions because the RTX 4060 also struggles with a 128-bit memory interface. DLSS, FSR, and XeSS again helped the Nvidia cards narrow the performance gap, but not by enough

Cyberpunk 2077 presented the same story. The Arc B580 tied with the Radeon RX 7700 XT, held considerable advantages over the Arc A750 and Radeon RX 7600, and enjoyed a slight lead over the GeForce RTX 4060 at 1080p and 1440p. Those huge increases aren't that meaningful here, however, as the frame rate was too slow even on the B580 for the game to be playable at anything but 1080p, but if you reduced settings, you'd get to a playable state much faster on the B580 than with the competition.

With DLSS and FSR enabled, we finally saw the RTX 4060 get a considerable leg up over the B580. This showed that the RTX 4060 could come out on top, but given that it didn't happen in the other FSR and DLSS tests, it's hard to judge how impactful this win is.

Guardians of the Galaxy is known to favor Nvidia graphics cards, and we saw the Nvidia cards leading the pack in this game as a result. Even with an inherent advantage, however, the RTX 4060 didn't topple the B580 here. The RTX 4060 was slightly faster at 1080p but slower at 4K. We'll declare this one a tie.

In games that don't support ray tracing, AMD's graphics cards become much more competitive, which was clearly observable in our tests. Typically, we expect Nvidia to be less competitive outside of ray-tracing titles, as it has superb ray-tracing performance. Against the B580, however, Nvidia also did better outside of ray-tracing titles.

In Total War: Three Kingdoms, the RX 7600 beat the B580 noticeably at 1080p, but the two cards tied at 1440p, and the B580 held an even bigger advantage at 4K. The situation is almost identical when comparing the B580 with the RTX 4060 here, except the RTX 4060 was narrowly ahead at 1080p, and the B580 pulled ahead by a similar amount at 4K.

Intel's Arc B580 was back on top in Shadow of the Tomb Raider with a slightly more than marginal lead over the Radeon RX 7600 at 1080p, which grew more pronounced at 1440p and even more so at 4K. It's worth mentioning at this point that the RX 7600 and the RX 7600 XT (which was also slower than the B580 here at all resolutions) also suffer from a narrow 128-bit memory interface, just like the RTX 4060 and the RTX 4060 Ti. The B580 tied with the RTX 4060 at 1080p, but Intel's performance advantage grew as the resolution increased.

However, the Arc B580 didn't perform well when running Far Cry 5. It topped Intel's Alchemist cards without issue, but the RX 7600 was faster here at 1080p, and the RTX 4060 was quicker than the B580, too. These advantages disappeared as the resolution increased, and the B580 came out on top again at 4K.

Technically new to the graphics card industry, Intel has had some apparent issues in a few areas. Its drivers were problematic when Alchemist first launched, but the worst of these issues are resolved. We didn't encounter any serious problems while testing this card, but that's not to say all issues are gone, either. We bring this up because Intel has struggled with another notable issue: support for older games. The legacy games we tested all worked this time, which is an improvement, but Intel has room for much more.

Bioshock Infinite didn't go badly for the B580. It fell behind the RX 7600 at 1080p but performed on par with the RX 7600 and RTX 4060 at 1440p before pulling ahead at 4K again. Meanwhile, all of the graphics cards we've tested in this price range have frankly struggled with Hitman Absolution at higher resolutions.

Let's just be clear: We see no reason why any of these GPUs shouldn't hit 60 frames per second at 4K in a game this old, but not one could -- not even the RTX 4070 Super. That's disappointing, but the B580 performed well enough here. The RTX 4060 failed to run this test at all at 1440p or 4K. The RX 7600 and the B580 ran it capably and maintained playable frame rates at all resolutions, just not as high as one would hope in such an old title. (We can see, however, a massive jump in performance from the older Alchemist cards that did flat-out poorly here.)

The most considerable improvement was in Sleeping Dogs, with the Arc B580 being the first Intel GPU we've had successfully run the benchmark. The Arc A750 was retested for this review but failed to run initially when that GPU was launched. Performance was slightly behind the RTX 4060 here but notably ahead of the RX 7600 and even the RX 7600 XT.

In sum, legacy game performance was still a bit lackluster, overall; anyone wanting to play these games would probably be better off buying an older graphics card. Nonetheless, Intel's improvement on this front is impressive, and based on our test results, we can't say it is behind AMD or Nvidia in this regard anymore. From these results, we'd feel more comfortable running a decade-old game on the B580 than we expected.

We use a Kill-A-Watt wall meter to check the power consumption of the GPU testbed as a whole. The graphics card is the only part that changes between tests, which suggests that any changes in power consumption are mostly down to the differences in GPU power draw.

Intel clearly targeted better efficiency, and it has succeeded in that goal. Idle power consumption remains a bit high on the B580, just as it did on Intel's Arc Alchemist cards, but the peak power draw on the B580 and the A750 is much the same. As power consumption didn't increase and performance increased a lot, this displays improved efficiency.

Whether the B580 is more energy efficient than its competitors, the RX 7600 and the RTX 4060, is a different story. It's difficult to determine which is more efficient, as the results can vary widely from game to game. As we just saw, performance differs significantly from game to game, and power consumption can vary just as much. Our results from Returnal suggest the B580 may be more energy efficient on a per-frame basis given its potent performance. Still, its higher overall power draw suggests it'll actually be a bit less efficient in most games.

With the Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition card, you shouldn't need to worry about it overheating, at least, as its temperature peaked at 68 degrees C during Returnal.

We didn't expect to be saying this about an Intel GPU so soon in the Alchemist/Battlemage lifecycle, but the Arc B580 delivers some serious "Wow."

Considering the improvements Intel has made, the extent to which Intel's graphics cards have improved from the previous generation is truly impressive. Indeed, the amount of performance they bring at that $249 price point will scramble the lay of the land in the budget-GPU market. We found a few specific situations where the Arc B580 doesn't quite beat the AMD Radeon RX 7600 and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060. But most of the time in the tests we conducted, it wins, and by good-size margins.

Intel's B580 is hands-down the best card among these three in terms of performance for the money. It's also the most affordable, and unless AMD or Nvidia want to slash their prices on their current offerings, we'll recommend the Arc B580 to everyone who asks for an under-$400 graphics card...at least until AMD or Nvidia counters.

Indeed, the biggest issue Intel faces now is one it knows all too well. The PC industry doesn't sit still for long, and AMD and Nvidia will likely have new graphics cards out in 2025. GeForce RTX 50 series cards are rumored to arrive early in 2025, and AMD is reportedly shifting its focus to mainstream and lower-end cards. Both companies tend to start with their top-performing graphics cards and then introduce more budget-friendly options later, giving Intel some time to gain market share before the next-generation budget competition arrives.

Even when the next cards arrive, they must be priced aggressively to unseat the B580. Both companies already have faster and more expensive options, like the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT and the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4070 Super. Both clearly drive better performance if you can afford them, but some people don't want to or can't spend that much on a graphics card, so better performance alone won't topple the Arc B580; a card must have the right price, too. Until a better option enters the market, if you're buying a sub-$400 GPU, get the Editors' Choice award-winning Intel Arc B580.