Intel formally introduced its newest discrete graphics playing cards on this week, the Intel Arc B580 and Intel Arc B570, based mostly on its next-gen Xe2 graphics structure.

Concentrating on the finances gaming section, the brand new flagship Intel Arc B580 GPU options 20 Xe-cores, 20 ray tracing models, 160 XMX AI Engines and 12GB GDDR6 reminiscence with a 192-bit reminiscence interface, specs that might make it a really aggressive 1440p graphics card.

The Intel Arc B570, in the meantime, options 18 Xe-cores, 18 ray tracing models, 144 XMX AI Engines, and 10GB GDDR6 reminiscence with a 160-bit reminiscence interface. And whereas that is lower than the Arc B580, it is extra reminiscence bandwidth than the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT, each of which struggled when it got here to 1440p gaming in gaming benchmarks as a result of their constrained reminiscence bandwidth.

What may be much more compelling for players proper now, although, is the launch value of the 2 playing cards, with the Intel reference playing cards debuting at $249 (about £195/AU$385) and $219 (about £175/AU$340), respectively, although third-party playing cards from Acer, ASRock, Gunnir, and others will range in value.

The Arc B580 will launch first on December 13, 2024, with the Arc B570 happening sale the next month on January 16, 2025.

Intel’s new card may be the RTX 3060 Ti successor we have been lacking

When it launched a few years again, the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti was a way more highly effective card than it had a proper to be, particularly for it is preliminary launch value. It ended up being one of the crucial common graphics playing cards of the complete Nvidia Ampere technology, and so when the RTX 4060 Ti launched final yr, followers of the 3060 Ti had excessive hopes for its successor.

Sadly, the RTX 4060 Ti was hamstrung out the gate by a reminiscence interface that made it successfully inconceivable to course of textures at 1440p with any form of pace or effectivity, even when choosing the variant with the bigger 16GB reminiscence pool.

For $399 (about £315/AU$615) at launch, the cardboard was a disappointment, as this was means an excessive amount of cash to spend on what was successfully a 1080p graphics card, whereas the RTX 3060 Ti, with a reminiscence interface twice as massive because the RTX 4060 Ti’s, may simply play video games at 1440p with average to excessive settings at respectable framerates.

The one graphics playing cards to actually make a splash within the sub-$400 section over the previous yr and a half have been the Nvidia RTX 4060 and AMD RX 7600, and solely actually due to their pricing after the wild GPU value inflation on a few of Nvidia and AMD’s flagship playing cards. And neither of these playing cards may deal with 1440p gaming.

With the brand new Intel Arc B580 and Arc B570, nevertheless, it is solely attainable that we would have the ability to see a brand new graphics card within the finances section able to tackling 1440p, the fastest-growing decision for PC gaming, the place their rivals at this value level can not.