Intel Arc B580 trades blows with the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 in early benchmarks

Early benchmarks for Intel's Arc B580 GPU indicate strong performance, particularly in OpenCL and Vulkan workloads, where it outperforms its predecessor, the A580, by up to 30%. The B580 is positioned as a competitive option in the sub-$300 market, claiming to be 10% faster than NVIDIA's RTX 4060 while being more affordable. Testing was conducted using Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K and 48GB of DDR5-8400 memory. In Vulkan tests, the B580 shows a significant lead over the A580, while its performance in OpenCL is slightly less impressive, trailing the RTX 4060. The B580 also outperforms AMD's RX 7600 in both APIs, although it falls short against the older RX 6700 XT. Intel's upcoming Battlemage architecture is expected to enhance performance further, especially with its new XeSS 2 upscaling technology, which may provide an advantage over AMD's future offerings. The overall success of the B580 will depend on the stability of its drivers and real-world performance, which will be evaluated after the official review embargo lifts on December 12.

- Intel's Arc B580 GPU shows up to 30% performance improvement over the A580 in early benchmarks.

- The B580 is claimed to be 10% faster than the RTX 4060 while being cheaper.

- Performance varies between OpenCL and Vulkan, with the B580 outperforming the A580 in Vulkan.

- The B580 competes well against AMD's RX 7600 but lags behind the RX 6700 XT.

- Future performance may improve with Intel's Battlemage architecture and XeSS 2 technology.