Ponder thine orb.
Intel’s making a run at carving a larger share of the GPU market, and they plan to take the budget market from AMD and Nvidia. And they plan to do it with their new Battlemage line. These Battlemage cards, the Intel Arc B580 ($249) and Arc B570 ($219) are shipping with a bunch of upgrades over their last-gen predecessors. Intel claims that they’ll easily claim the budget market with these new cards.
While the Battlemage architecture retains some of its predecessor’s (Alchemist) architecture, it features some significant boosts over their previous offering.
For example, new to the Arc gaming cards is the second generation of Intel’s Xe microarchitecture, which increases Xe core performance by up to 70% and increasing performance from power by 50% per watt. Xe also comes with other benefits; the second gen of Xe Super Sampling technology (XeSS) comes with more performance enhancers, allowing the AI upscaling to deliver the most crisp graphics at even higher framerates than before.
The cards also boast Intel’s Xe Low Latency technology. Its algorithms determine the best for your inputs to the monitor’s output, erasing any noticeable lag between your actions and the screen.
Another nifty feature for these budget cards is ray tracing. The Arc cards will feature the second generation of Intel’s ray tracing tech. While they are definitely an improvement over Alchemist’s ray tracing capabilities (which were apparently nothing to sneeze at), there isn’t anything quantifiable just yet in regard to Battlemage’s capabilities.
They’re also making a push for AI, in case you didn’t notice. Included is AI Playground, a multipurpose PC App which allows you to not only generate images and ask questions, but also edit images as well. AI is also at the heart of every Xe-core with AI engines called Xe Matrix Extensions (XMX), which allow the Arc cards to accelerate gaming, content creation, media generation, and more.
And in case you haven’t noticed, both of the Arc cards feature a “B” for “Battlemage” in their model numbers, just like the previous generation cards had model numbers starting with “A” for “Alchemist”. Neat.
That said, it’s a matter of whether or not these cards will be able to make a dent in their competitors. With the Battlemage line, they’re aiming to be 1440p kings. And at least as far as Intel’s numbers, the Arc B580 is roughly 10% faster than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 while running games at 1440p with ultra settings. Intel also boasts the higher bandwidth of their cards over the competition, with the Arc cards featuring a 192-bit interface to Nvidia and AMD’s 128-bit memory interfaces. Though stats aren’t everything, so it’s worth taking it all with a grain of salt.
Even then, the Battlemage cards are likely going to be reliant on getting out ahead of the competition. Intel is primarily comparing these new cards to the AMD Radeon RX 7600 and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060. Both of those cards launched in 2023, and there will be successors on the way in 2025, most likely. If Intel plans to conquer the budget market, they’ll need to do so while the doing is good. Because neither AMD nor Nvidia are going to rest on their laurels for too much longer.
Source: PC Mag
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