When Intel debuted it first Arc video card two years agoI’m more than a little skeptical. Could a company that famously abandoned its last major desktop GPU project in 2009 actually make a dent in a market dominated by NVIDIA and AMD? Well, when I checked it in 2022, the Arc A750 and A770 performed better than I thought, although they were also held back by Intel’s poor drivers. But it seems that Intel has learned from its mistakes.

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

Intel

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

Pros

• Faster than Radeon 7600 and RTX 4060
• XeSS upscaling is good
• Cool and quiet performance
• Only $250

Cons

• XeSS is not as widely supported as DLSS 3
• Newer AMD cards can surpass this

$250 at Newegg

The B580 marks the debut of Intel’s second-generation Arc Xe2 GPUs, and it will be joined by the $219 B570 next month. Based on their specs alone, it’s easy to see why they’re forced into budget games. The B580 has 20 Xe cores, 20 ray tracing units and a faster clock speed than 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, by comparison, is stuck with 8GB of VRAM and a more limited 128-bit interface. Even the RTX 4060 Ti sports a small amount of VRAM, which limits similar GPUs mostly to 1080p gameplay (especially if you want a little ray tracing). AMD’s Radeon RX 7600which goes for $269, is also weighed down by 8GB of RAM and weaker ray tracing performance than NVIDIA and Intel’s cards.

While Intel has a clear hardware advantage, timing is also a major concern. The Arc B580 was launched as we prepare for CES 2025, where NVIDIA and AMD are expected to showcase new desktop GPUs. Due to the constant increase in prices of NVIDIA, I would not bet on seeing an RTX 5060 around $ 250, but AMD is another story. It has been trying to make an impact on the low and mid-range GPU market for years, and the same is reported with its RDNA 4 cards. There’s a good chance we’ll finally 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, however, the Arc B580 will serve you well. In my test, it scored slightly higher than the RTX 4060 Ti in 3DMark’s Timespy Extreme Benchmark, and it was also faster than the Radeon 7600. The B580 shines even in ray tracing. I hit 58 fps average at 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 really surprised how well the Arc B580 handled 1440p gaming. on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I hit 70 fps on average with high graphics settings, mid-range ray tracing and Intel’s XeSS upscaling turned on. That’s better performance than you’ll find on the $700 PlayStation 5 Pro (although, Sony’s PSSR AI upscaling might look better on your eyes). I also hit 85 fps on average while playing Halo Infinite at 1440p with maximum graphics, which is better than the 4060 Ti. While we are used to budget cards being more limited to 1080p gaming, the additional memory of the Arc B580 clearly makes it suitable for 1440p.

However, there are benefits that competition offers. NVIDIA’s RTX GPUs can also work with its special apps, such as NVIDIA Broadcaster, which can clean up your audio and video for streams and recordings. Additionally, NVIDIA’s DLSS 3 upscaling is available in over 500 games, while Intel’s XeSS Only 200 were broken. And then there’s the driver issue: NVIDIA has decades of experience creating solid GPU software, while Intel is still recovering from recent driver errors. At least XeSS 2 AI upscaling seems to be more useful than AMD’s FSR 3 (FidelityFX Super Resolution), because Intel’s tech looks better and can usually increase the performance of a game by 30 percent or more.

The Arc B580 also survived hours of benchmarking and gaming without any hardware or driver issues. When I first tested the Arc A750 and A770, they always crashed 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 exceeded 64 degrees celsius (which also kept its two large fans from making too much noise). While there are third-party cards available, I’m also impressed with Intel’s reference design: The B580 feels premium and solid, not cheap and plastic like many other budget GPUs.

At this point, it looks like Intel has it problem keeping Arc B580 in stocka remarkably good problem for attacked giant chip. It’s easy to see why gamers are smitten: It delivers solid 1080p and 1440p performance for most new titles, even with minimal ray tracing. Finally, there’s a viable $250 GPU that won’t make you feel like you’re behind the pack. This is a clear win for Intel – at least until we see what’s new from AMD.