The blockbuster phenomenon arrived with a far greater splashing impact than many had predicted, making waves just in time for the holiday season last year. The gaming GPU’s price range offered an unexpected level of efficiency, making it a highly competitive option in the market. Despite initial success, further testing has uncovered that the cardboard’s performance falters when used with certain legacy systems.
The recent unveiling of Intel’s latest GPU may have initially generated excitement and buzz, potentially jeopardizing its efforts to establish itself as a major player in the competitive graphics card market.
Tech testers at Hardware Canucks have identified key performance metrics and shared their findings in a video on their YouTube channel, detailing the results of their comprehensive tests. The results from preliminary testing reveal consistently outstanding performance when paired with a modern, fast CPU like the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, justifying the cost of the graphics card. Despite using a relatively ancient Intel Core i5 9600K CPU on a Z390 motherboard – a six-year-old system – the card’s performance becomes much more unpredictable.
While some video games exhibited negligible performance degradation or a 10-20% decline compared to other GPUs tested, the older CPU’s consistency proved a constant bottleneck. However, in certain titles, the Intel Arc B580’s performance plummeted precipitously. In Warhammer 40K: House Marine 2, the framerate plummeted from a respectable 74.3fps to a less impressive 52.5fps, with many other games experiencing a mere 10% decline in performance by around the same point.
A noticeable performance drop in Spider-Man: Remastered is observed, with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX’s integrated GPU, Arc A580, experiencing a significant decline in frame rate from an average of 154.7fps to 74.9fps at the same graphics settings. The performance of the graphics card plummeted dramatically, ultimately emerging as the slowest competitor in head-to-head comparisons with the RTX 4060, RX 7600, RX 6700XT, and GTX 1660 Super. Faster than its predecessor, this card is a force to be reckoned with, boasting performance that far surpasses the six-year-old mid-range Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super.
Various video game titles have been impacted, including Starfield and Hogwarts: Legacy, whereas a significant number of popular games remain unaffected, such as Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth Wukong, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The listing of affected titles is indeed crucial as well.
During their exams, hardware enthusiasts, commonly referred to as Canucks, observed high CPU utilization and inferred that the exam’s difficulty was not solely due to the Intel Arc B580 card’s increased processing demands becoming a bottleneck. As a substitute, the CPU utilization decreased, indicating that the graphics card is hindering overall performance rather than being a bottleneck. The conclusion suggests that the hurdle lies with the Intel graphics driver configuration.
Intel’s initial release of the Arc A770 GPU was marred by efficiency issues when running older video games, largely due to inadequate driver optimisation. The latest batch of graphics cards seems to be plagued by a similar problem, this time struggling with compatibility on older CPUs.
Intel has confirmed to {Hardware} Canucks that it is exploring ways to replicate some of the efficiency improvements and is actively investigating this issue. The length of any given repair hinges crucially on whether the issue can be addressed through a series of minor tweaks or if each game and older system is similarly impacted, necessitating a more comprehensive approach. We’ll need to obtain an additional clause from Intel before we proceed.
While the Intel Arc B580 may not be as flashy as newer graphics cards, it still offers a reasonable price-to-performance ratio for those looking to upgrade from older systems. Despite recent developments, both AMD and Intel are poised to unveil fresh iterations of their gaming GPUs at CES 2025’s upcoming showcase, potentially sending shockwaves throughout the entire graphics card industry pending their announcements. The rumour mill is buzzing with speculation surrounding the upcoming AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5000 series, but we’ll have to wait a few more days for concrete information.
