Intel’s second-generation Xe2 Arc GPUs have arrived, and once again, they can be attractive options for serious gamers seeking effective video cards under $250. Confirming that Intel has unveiled the $249 Arc A380 and the slightly less successful $219 A350, both designed for 1,440p gaming capabilities. The new XeSS2 AI capabilities, along with Super Sampling upscaling and body technology, function seamlessly on both the latest corporate offerings and older Arc graphics cards, ensuring a seamless transition to low-latency gaming experiences. To surpass Intel’s demands, the goal is to deliver greater value for money compared to NVIDIA’s $299 RTX 4060 and AMD’s Radeon 7600, outperforming them on a dollar-to-dollar basis.
While attempting to make a noble pitch, this effort unfortunately amounts to simply rehashing Intel’s failed previous attempts with its Arc GPUs. Although NVIDIA and the corporate were diligent about rolling out driver updates, that hasn’t prevented their total GPU market share from declining. Many enthusiastic gamers likely hesitated to invest in Intel’s hardware and software, as NVIDIA and AMD offerings had already been thoroughly vetted and were only marginally more expensive.
Although the Xe2 chip’s facility bump might alter the landscape for Intel, that could be significant. The corporation asserts that the B580 outperforms its preceding A750 Limited Edition GPU by 24% at 1440p with demanding graphics settings, also boasting a 10% advantage over NVIDIA’s RTX 4060. Intel’s benchmarks show the B580 outperforming the RTX 4060 by 43% in certain scenarios, but lagging behind by approximately 20% in gaming applications.
While Intel’s new GPUs are expected to meet the demands of 1440p-focused gamers. The NVIDIA B580 offers 20 Xe cores, 20 ray tracing units, 12 GB of video random access memory, and operates at a frequency of 2,670 megahertz. While the B570 is available with a slightly lower specification: 18 Xe cores, 10GB of RAM, and a 2,500MHz clock speed. While some might argue that investing an extra $30 in future-proofing is worthwhile, those committed to playing at 1080p may not perceive a pressing need for upgraded power.
During a press conference, Tom Petersen, an Intel Fellow, revealed that the company uncovered hidden capabilities in its previous GPUs, marking its first significant foray into developing discrete graphics. “With the launch of XE2, we’ve introduced a completely fresh hardware foundation, empowering us to deliver increased resource allocation, more efficient workload management, and significantly reduced software bloat.” “At the end of the day, achieving software efficiency is crucial to unlock the benefits of our hardware innovations.”
Intel’s latest XeSS AI offerings boldly rival NVIDIA’s DLSS3 capabilities. The Intel B580 GPU reportedly doubles its efficiency when harnessing XeSS, according to the company, while the newly introduced body technology is expected to further boost frame rates. Unlike NVIDIA’s technology, which merely upscales graphics from a lower resolution by creating intermediate pixels through interpolation, this innovation goes beyond mere upscaling and instead generates fully novel frames through intelligent interpolation. The corporation’s XeSS2 technology, dubbed XeLL, boasts a significant 45% enhancement in responsiveness, thanks to its impressive low-latency capabilities. According to Intel, its B580 processor outperforms the RTX 4060 in AI large language model (LLM) efficiency, boasting a remarkable 20% increase in token processing speed for Llama 2 and Llama 3.1 workloads, with a significant boost to 20 additional tokens per second.
While Intel’s potential for scaling its Arc GPUs beyond mid-range levels is certainly intriguing, what truly piques my interest is the company’s innovation in the low-end space. Despite a decade of escalating GPU sophistication, the notion of affordable yet effective video cards has all but vanished in recent years. Intel may well earn a devoted following among enthusiastic gamers if it.
If you’re eager to get your hands on these innovative graphics processing units (GPUs), you won’t need to wait long. The Asus ROG Arc B580 gaming keyboard is slated to launch on December 13 for a price of $249, while the ROG Arc B570 editions are set to arrive on January 16 at a more affordable $219. Intel is expected to produce a custom, Limited Edition version of the Arc B580, but will leave the B570 graphics cards in the hands of its partners, including Acer, ASRock, and Sparkle.
