The new king of $250 GPUs (for now)

When Intel debuted its first Arc video cards two years ago, I was more than a little skeptical. Could a company that famously gave up on its last major desktop GPU project in 2009 actually make a dent in a market dominated by NVIDIA and AMD? Well, when I reviewed them in 2022, the Arc A750 and A770 turned out better than I thought, though they were also held back by Intel’s poor drivers. But it seems Intel has learned from its mistakes.

The new $250 Arc B580 performs better than AMD’s low-end Radeon 7600, and it can even tangle a bit with NVIDIA when it comes to budget ray tracing. The only question is if it’s worth investing in an Intel video card given its rocky corporate outlook. But for such a cheap video card, with a price that harkens back to the early 2000s, the risk may be worth it.

Intel

Intel’s Arc B580 is a rarity: A $250 GPU that delivers solid 1080p and 1440p gaming, even with a bit of ray tracing.

Pros

• Faster than a Radeon 7600 and RTX 4060
• XeSS upscaling works well
• Cool and quiet performance
• Just $250

Cons

• XeSS isn’t as widely supported as DLSS 3
• New AMD cards may outclass it

$250 at Newegg

The B580 marks the debut of Intel’s second-generation Arc Xe2 GPUs, and it’ll be joined by the $219 B570 next month. Based on their specs alone, it’s easy to see why they’re compelling for budget games. The B580 features 20 Xe cores, 20 ray tracing units and a faster clock speed than the previous Arc cards. Most importantly, though, it’s rocking 12GB of VRAM with a 192-bit memory interface, giving it more than enough room to pump out 1440p gameplay.

The $299 NVIDIA RTX 4060, in comparison, is stuck with 8GB of VRAM and a far more limited 128-bit interface. Even the RTX 4060 Ti sports that meager amount of VRAM, limiting both of those GPUs mostly to 1080p gameplay (especially if you wanted a bit of ray tracing). AMD’s Radeon RX 7600, which goes for around $269, is also burdened with 8GB of RAM and weaker ray tracing performance than NVIDIA and Intel’s cards.

While Intel has a clear hardware advantage, timing is once again a major concern. The Arc B580 launched as we’re preparing for CES 2025, where both NVIDIA and AMD are expected to show off new desktop GPUs. Given NVIDIA’s ever-increasing prices, I wouldn’t bet on seeing an RTX 5060 around $250, but AMD is another story. It’s been trying to make an impact in the low- and mid-range GPU market for years, and that’s reportedly still the case with its RDNA 4 cards. There’s a good chance we’ll eventually see some sort of inexpensive next-gen GPU from AMD.

If you need to build a budget gaming rig in the next few months or so, though, the Arc B580 will serve you well. In my testing, it scored slightly higher than the RTX 4060 Ti in 3DMark’s Timespy Extreme Benchmark, and it was also noticeably faster than the Radeon 7600. The B580 shone even brighter with ray tracing. I hit a 58 fps average in the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark running at 1080p with Ultra graphics settings and mid-range ray tracing. The Radeon 7600, on the other hand, sometimes struggled to stay above 40 fps with similar settings.

I was genuinely surprised by how well the Arc B580 tackled 1440p gaming. In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I hit 70 fps on average with high graphics settings, mid-range ray tracing and Intel’s XeSS upscaling flipped on. That’s better performance than you’ll see on the $700 PlayStation 5 Pro (though admittedly, Sony’s PSSR AI upscaling might look better to your eyes). I also hit 85 fps on average while playing Halo Infinite in 1440p with maxed out graphics, which was slightly better than the 4060 Ti. While we’re used to budget cards being mainly limited to 1080p gaming, the Arc B580’s additional memory clearly makes it well suitedfor 1440p.

Still, there are benefits that the competition offers. NVIDIA’s RTX GPUs can also work with its specialized apps, like NVIDIA Broadcaster, which can clean up your audio and video for streams and recordings. Additionally, NVIDIA’s DLSS 3 upscaling is available on over 500 games, while Intel’s XeSS just cracked 200. And then there’s the driver issue: NVIDIA has decades of experience crafting solid GPU software, whereas Intel is still recovering from its recent driver missteps. At least the XeSS 2 AI upscaling seems more useful than AMD’s FSR 3 (FidelityFX Super Resolution), as Intel’s tech looks dramatically better and can often increase a game’s performance by 30 percent or more.

The Arc B580 also survived several hours of benchmarking and gaming without any hardware or driver issues. When I first tested the Arc A750 and A770, they would often crash within an hour of testing. Intel’s software has clearly made some progress. The B580 reference model I tested also stayed relatively cool under load, and it never surpassed 64 degrees celsius (which also kept its two large fans from ever making much noise). While there will be third-party cards available, I was also impressed by Intel’s reference design: The B580 feels premium and sturdy, not cheap and plasticky like many other budget GPUs.

At this point, it seems like Intel is already having trouble keeping the Arc B580 in stock, a rare good problem for the beleaguered chip giant. It’s easy to see why gamers are smitten: It delivers solid 1080p and 1440p performance for most new titles, even with a bit of ray tracing. Finally, there’s a viable $250 GPU that doesn’t make you feel like you’re desperately behind the pack. It’s a clear win for Intel – at least until we see what’s new from AMD.