Intel Arc B580 makes PC Gaming affordable again
Reviews are in, and I’m hopeful this will bring PC Games back into the desktop.
I’ve been very critical of the state of the market for PC Gaming. I always said that it would become more than an elitist niche, supported by manufacturers chasing the pricing trend, until a product that could disrupt the market was released.
And today it happened.
That is why the Intel Arc B280 is a surprise on such a stale hardware market. Let’s put the words of the people who review it:
For entry level gaming, the [Intel Arc] B580 is now the new go-to option. It’s really impossible to recommend anything else, so, great job Intel!
The upshot I think is that Intel has a very competitively priced card here, in the [Intel Arc] B580, that can offer significant performance gains over what Intel is selling.
This thing has the potential to be a monster GPU for $250. (…) This thing beats even the best A Series cards that are out there. Performance per-watt has improved as well. The list? It just keeps going on.
This is a firecracker of a card. The performance is incredibly impressive. Generally, it’s a sweeping win, at least when we’re talking to price to performance ratios from both AMD and NVIDIA.
All told though, [Intel] Arc B580 is a dream product in many ways. This is as close to disruption as you are gonna see. A rare thing indeed in a mature market like PC graphics.
The [Intel Arc] B580 poses considerable value in some situations as compared to the RTX 4060 and the RX 7600. It’s not always the best and it does trade with these cards, but it’s a serious competitor this time.
[Intel Arc B580] it’s a great GPU that will give you great performance without destroying your wallet.
It’s clear the Intel Arc B580 it’s not perfect on all games, but punching above is (price) weight on a lot of games should start a trend of affordable graphics cards.
If this becomes a success, it may push AMD — as long they don’t shoot themselves in the foot for the fifth time — and NVIDIA to either rethink their approach to the value market or fight slightly above on the mainstream market.
Either way, next year is going to be key for the graphics market, and PC Gaming in general.
