Intel has expanded the range of Intel Arc graphics adapters by officially presenting the Intel Arc A580 model. The video card was announced simultaneously with the older devices in the series, Arc A750 and Arc A770, last fall, but only now is it time for practical implementation. The Intel Arc A580 is positioned by the manufacturer as an affordable solution for gaming in Full HD mode with high graphics quality settings. The model has an attractive price tag of $179.
In terms of its equipment, the newly-made “five” is quite close to the older models. The video card is based on the same ACM-G10 graphics processor (406 mm², 21.7 billion transistors) manufactured by TSMC using a 6-nanometer process technology. In this case, the GPU has 3,072 calculators, 192 texture modules, and 96 rasterizers. The base processor frequency is 1700 MHz with an average acceleration of up to 2000 MHz.
The video card is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, which operates at an efficient 16,000 MHz. As with the older models, the Intel Arc A580 has a 256-bit bus, and therefore boasts a 512 GB/s bandwidth. This is an impressive figure for a video card in this price range. For example, the GeForce RTX 4060 has 272 GB/s, and the new Radeon RX 7600 has 288 GB/s.
Of course, memory bandwidth is only one of the factors that affect the final performance of a video card, but it is obvious that this component will not be a weak link for Arc A580.
The declared power consumption level of Intel Arc A580 is 185 W. As a rule, the devices will be equipped with a pair of 8-pin connectors for connecting additional power. There are no reference graphics cards of the series from the manufacturer, so Intel relies on partners. ASRock, Sparkle, and Gunnir have already presented their versions of the adapters.
As we have already mentioned, the Intel Arc A580 8 GB is designed for gaming in Full HD mode, and the developers also emphasize the additional acceleration of the video card using the proprietary XeSS intelligent scaling algorithm.
Intel also puts a special emphasis on hardware video transcoding capabilities that can significantly speed up the speed of editing and processing such content.
Intel Arc A580 performance
Some of my colleagues have already managed to evaluate the capabilities of the new Intel graphics card in practice. For the first acquaintance, we offer you a quick look at the results of ASRock Arc A580 Challenger, which was tested by TechpowerUp reviewers.
The performance of the Intel Arc A580 in Full HD mode is of utmost interest. According to the results of tests in 25 gaming projects, the average performance of Intel’s new product was very close to that of the Radeon RX 6600 8 GB. In the NVIDIA ecosystem, the new product is 5-10% slower than the GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB and about a quarter faster than the GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB.
The average performance in Full HD is 75 fps at the maximum picture quality setting. However, in certain projects, you will either have to rely on scaling (XeSS or FSR) or further adjust the parameters to get 60 fps. The exception is The Last of Us, where there are obviously problems with software optimizations that do not allow the Arc A580 to open up.
Intel’s new product is quite powerful when ray tracing is activated. In this case, the ratio of power with NVIDIA solutions is actually maintained, and this is a remarkable achievement. In Full HD with ray tracing enabled, the Intel Arc A580 turned out to be 20% better than the Radeon RX 6600 and almost close to the Radeon RX 7600.
Power consumption is not the strongest point of the Intel Arc A580. Under gaming load, the graphics adapter consumes about 200 watts of power. In addition, it seems that the issue of increased consumption in idle mode has not been fully resolved. 35-40 watts are not the figures we would like to see without a payload.
In general, Intel Arc A580 8GB looks quite attractive, especially for enthusiasts who are frankly tired of the current duopoly in the graphics card market and are interested in experimenting with fundamentally new solutions. Does this model with a retail price tag of $200+ have any chances of success? We are waiting for it in Ukraine.
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