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It's nice to see a new graphics card that has a theoretically budget price of $219. We'll have to wait and see how things develop over time, though, as the Arc B580 has been sold out and overpriced basically since it launched last month. Hopefully things calm down soon and prices drop to MSRP levels.
Could the same thing happen to the Arc B570? Yes, but it probably won't be as severe. The B580 ends up as the more desirable card, since performance scales more than the price. For most graphics cards, you'll typically pay 20% more money for 10% more performance, rather than 12% more money for 18% more performance.
We haven't talked a lot about drivers this time, but as with our B580 testing, there are definitely anomalies and issues that still need fixing. Some games underperform, other crash on a regular basis. This is the Intel "fine wine" argument where performance and compatibility improve over time. But most people would likely prefer having something work properly from the start.
Battlemage in many ways feels like a rehash of the Alchemist launch. It's faster than the outgoing AMD and Nvidia GPUs, but new models are coming soon. But we don't expect Nvidia's future RTX 5060 to cost less than $300, and even AMD's RX 9060 may start at $300. That leaves the sub-$250 and "closer to $200" market to the Arc B570 by default.
It still has to contend with older model cards, but the RX 6600 isn't able to keep pace. Even in rasterization games, the B570 ends up being almost 30% faster than the 6600, while costing about 16% more. So unless prices on the RX 6600 drop another $20 or more, the B570 wins that comparison.
It also wins against the RX 7600. It's only slightly faster in general, and tied at 1080p medium, but it costs $30 less. Basically, the Arc B570 ends up standing alone as a brand new chip that only costs $220. There's nothing else released in the past two years that sits in that price bracket.
If you're mostly concerned with price and value rather than performance and compatibility, the Arc B570 should be a reasonable option. But if you can afford the extra $30 — and find a B580 in stock for that price — its sibling GPU remains the better option.
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