Intel Arc B580: Unveiling Performance Struggles on Legacy Gaming Systems in Latest Tests

The Intel Arc B580 made a considerably larger impact than many anticipated when it launched just before last year’s holiday season. The economical gaming GPU provided performance that surpassed expectations and was offered at a genuinely attractive price. Nonetheless, additional evaluations have shown that the card’s performance struggles when utilized on certain older systems.

Following its strong case for inclusion in the best graphics card rankings around the globe, this recent finding could significantly undermine Intel’s effort to establish its standing in the market.

The performance complications were uncovered by tech reviewers Hardware Canucks, who shared a video on their YouTube channel detailing their testing outcomes. In the video, they highlight how initial assessments with a contemporary, high-speed CPU like the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D yield consistently impressive performance for the card’s price point. Conversely, when evaluated with an older Intel Core i5 9600K CPU on a Z390 motherboard—an aging six-year-old system—the card’s performance becomes significantly less consistent.

While several games displayed either no significant performance decrease or experienced a 10-20% dip consistent with the other GPUs tested—the older CPU turned out to be a persistent constraint—in some titles, the Intel Arc B580’s frame rate plummeted dramatically. For example, in Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, the card’s average dropped from 74.3fps to 52.5fps, while most competing cards only saw reductions around 10%.

An even more concerning case is Spider-Man Remastered, in which the Arc B580 plummeted from an average of 154.7fps to merely 74.9fps. This performance hit caused it to go from leading the chart against the RTX 4060, RX 7600, RX 6700XT, and GTX 1660 Super to becoming the slowest performer on the test. Indeed, it performs worse than the six-year-old, mid-tier GTX 1660 Super.

Other games impacted include Starfield and Hogwarts: Legacy, while the list of unaffected titles still comprises numerous modern entries such as Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth Wukong, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. It’s noteworthy that the list of affected games is also substantial.

By analyzing CPU utilization during their tests, Hardware Canucks concluded that the problem wasn’t caused by the CPU being overburdened when using the Intel Arc B580, thereby causing a bottleneck. Rather, CPU utilization was lower, indicating that it is the card itself that is restraining performance. They infer that this points towards the Intel graphics drivers being the underlying issue.

Upon the launch of its initial Arc GPU, the Intel Arc A770, Intel faced challenges regarding performance in older games due to inadequate driver optimization, and it appears these new cards encounter a similar predicament but involving older CPUs now.

Hardware Canucks contacted Intel for feedback, and the company acknowledged that it could reproduce some of the performance concerns and is proactively investigating the matter. The duration required for a resolution will largely depend on whether the issue is isolated and can be addressed with minor adjustments or if each game and older system presents unique challenges. We will need to await further updates from Intel for clarity.

For now, the Intel Arc B580 remains a reasonable budget upgrade option for users on more contemporary systems. Still, both AMD and Intel plan to unveil entirely new gaming GPU lines next week at the CES 2025 trade event, potentially stirring up the graphics card landscape, based on their announcements. Rumors suggest the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5000 series, but we will gather more information in a few days.