Intel has announced its new Battlemage GPUs today based on the Xe2 architecture, promising 70% faster performance per Xe core and 50% better performance per watt.
If you recall, Intel has a cool way to name its discrete Arc graphics cards. The 1st gen was called A-series where A meant Alchemist. Likewise, Battlemage is the second-generation and thus the GPUs will comprise B-series.
Today, the company has announced two entry-level cards, the B580 and B570. The former, Intel says, beats both AMD's Radeon RX 7600 and Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 in both rasterization as well as ray-tracing.
While you may wonder how that is an impressive thing since both Team Red and Team Green have much better GPUs, Intel has revealed that it is offering this performance for under $250 which means currently these Battlemage cards are the fastest GPUs one can get at this price point.
Aside from the GPU announcements, Intel has also revealed XeSS 2 upscaling technology XeSS Super Resolution, XeSS Frame Generation and Xe Low Latency. Similar to AMD's and Nvidia's offerings, Frame Generation on XeSS brings interpolated frames and Xe Low Latency promises faster response times and lower input latency. Combined, Intel claims up to 3.9 times higher FPS output. with XeSS 2.
The company writes:
Compared with the previous generation, the Intel Arc B-Series GPUs offer 70% better performance per Xe-core and 50% more performance per watt. The B580 GPU, when compared to the Intel Arc A750 GPU, is on average 24% faster at 1440p with some games up to 78% faster.
When compared to the competition, the Intel Arc B580 GPU offers up to 32% better performance-per-dollar.
In terms of availability, Intel says that its Arc B580 Limited Edition graphics card from add-in board (AIB) partners Acer, ASRock, GUNNIR, ONIXX, MAXSUN and Sparkle will be available starting Dec. 13 from $249. Meanwhile, the B570 graphics cards, from the same AIBs will be available starting Jan. 16, 2025, from $219.
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