Intel releases its second generation of graphics cards

Intel has launched two new graphics cards for PC gamers, and the price-performance ratio looks set to appeal to many people looking to upgrade their 1080p or 1440p gaming rigs.

These cards are aimed at mid-range PCs, and we expect a high-end card to follow sometime in 2025. Before we discuss what the cards are capable of and how they compare to AMD and Nvidia, let’s unpack Intel’s naming scheme so you can understand where they fall in line.

When the company launched its series of ‘Arc’ GPUs in 2022, it started with the A series, which stood for ‘Alchemist’. Ranked from least to most powerful, these included the A310, A380, A580, A750 and A770. Basically, the higher the number, the better the GPU.

The two new cards follow similar numbering schemes, but have a B prefix, signifying they are from the ‘Battlemage’ generation. The lower end option is the B570 and the slightly higher end is the B570. We haven’t tested these cards, but Intel claims both will be solid options for 1440p gaming. Judging by the amount of VRAM, that should remain true as most other GPUs targeting this resolution have similar amounts of RAM.

Intel press release mentions that both cards support a new form of its XeSS upscaling technology and better ray-tracing hardware compared to its previous generation. There are also some improvements to the GPU to make it better at running generative AI tasks and encoding video files to help editors. It should also be noted that while the launch of the Intel A series was rocky, the company has refined its software and I expect the B series to be much more stable at launch. If these offer the same price for performance gains as the A series, Intel could have a hit if it can convince gamers to trust them.

Like Nvidia ( DLSS ), AMD ( FSR ), and Apple ( MetalFX ), Intel’s next-generation upscaling technology (XeSS) now supports even more forms of software enhancement for games that support it. The new cards offer super resolution technology, frame generation and something called ‘Xe Low Latency’.

Super-resolution is Intel’s upscaling technology that will render games at lower resolutions and then use AI to make them appear sharper. I use Nvidia’s version of this when gaming on my TV to make my games run more smoothly at higher settings, but depending on the game, I find it a bit hit-and-miss in terms of visual quality . That said, these kinds of upscaling help GPUs last longer, as you can play newer games on older cards, with upscaling helping to even out the lower resolution of modern monitors. I also find this works better on the TV as I sit further away so I notice less detail naturally. Intel says XeSS Super Resolution is supported on 150 games, with more on the way.

The XeSS AI-powered frame generation tech adds fake AI-generated frames between real frames to make playing a game at a lower frame rate seem smoother. Nvidia released similar technology in 2022 with its 40 series of GPUs, so it’s nice to see Intel catching up. That said, we’ll have to wait for more tests to come out to see if both software are actually comparable.

The final XeSS technology just helps increase the game’s response time to your inputs. When all three are enabled, Intel says they can improve performance by about 3.9 percent in AAA titles. Overall, Intel says the new cards offer 70 percent better performance per card. core compared to Intel A-series cards and 50 percent more performance per watts of energy used.

Without testing either card, I would still recommend that most users go for the B580 as it comes with slightly more GPU cores and 12GB of VRAM. While it’s not a huge upgrade over the B570, which has 10GB of VRAM, the extra 2GB should help the card last a bit longer if you plan to play graphics-intensive games that support advanced features like ray-tracing. Other than that, the price difference between them is pretty small, so spending the extra money to get the more powerful GPU is probably worth the extra cost.

The B580 will hit store shelves on December 13th and will start at $249 USD (approximately $350 CAD). The B570 will be released on January 16th and will start at $219 USD (roughly, $308 CAD). Compared to other GPUs in Canada at this price point, the Arc models look pretty slick as they include more VRAM on average than the competition, but only time will tell if they actually out perform options from Nvidia and AMD.

Source: Intel