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We have to give Intel credit: Entering the dedicated GPU market was always going to be difficult. Intel tried to do it back in the late 90s and then gave up. Things would have been very different if it had stuck with it and poured more funding into GPU R&D, but that ship sailed a long time ago. Now it's back for round three with Battlemage.
The Arc Alchemist GPUs were generally okay, but driver problems were and still are a potential concern. The A-series GPUs also failed to gain any market share, and some people assumed that Intel would simply give up on the discrete graphics card market yet again. So far, that hasn't happened, and the B580 and Battlemage are proof that Intel remains committed to becoming competitive in the GPU arena.
Intel needs to gain some traction with Battlemage if it's going to continue, though. With Gelsinger leaving Intel, a new CEO could spell changes for the GPU efforts. The next generation Celestial architecture is apparently already underway, and if that continues, we should see Arc C-series GPUs in the next year or two — probably first as an integrated solution on a future processor, just like Battlemage.
The driver situation has improved, even if things haven't gone perfectly with our testing for this launch. That's not unusual, and some of the necessary fixes were already present in the public driver branch. With the latest preview drivers, there weren't any significant show-stoppers in our testing.
The good news is that Battlemage looks more promising than its predecessor. It delivers better performance, improved efficiency, and some new features like XeSS 2 — though that will also work on A-series GPUs and will take time to materialize. The B580 also looks competitive as an AI solution, which is perhaps one of the biggest drivers of Intel's GPU efforts right now. Will consumers actually buy Arc B-series cards? That remains to be seen.
The biggest concern is that Battlemage, like Alchemist, is late to the party. Nvidia and AMD began shipping 5nm-class GPUs in 2022, right around the same time that Alchemist came out using a 7nm-class process node. Now, Intel has 'caught up' by shifting to TSMC N5, just in time for AMD and Nvidia to come out with their next generation chips.
Right now, you can make the argument that the Arc B580 represents the best graphics card value on the market. It has performance that's equal to or better than the existing AMD and Nvidia $250–$300 parts, with a competitive feature set, and it costs less. That's all good.
Will it still be the best value in another month or two? That largely hinges on whether AMD wants to be aggressive on pricing with its own budget GPU. The RX 7600 was more of a sidestep from the RX 6650 XT. Perhaps RX 8600 (or whatever it ends up being called) will offer a significant improvement in performance at the same price point.
Either way, it can't hurt to wait a few weeks until we find out more about AMD's RDNA 4 lineup. So unless you're on a strict timeline, like having a shiny new GPU for the holiday break, we'd wait and see what Nvidia and AMD announce in January before committing to any specific GPU purchase.
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