SPARKLE Intel Arc B580 TITAN OC Graphic Card

Listen to this post:

The market for desktop GPUs has changed considerably over the last few years, though not always in the best interests for consumers. In a market dominated by two companies, AMD and Nvidia, Intel has been called a much-needed alternative to the entrenched duopoly with the introduction of their Arc graphics cards. But the rollout hasn’t been without its share of controversy and speculation, and some questions still linger. For this review, I’ll be looking at the SPARKLE Arc B580 TITAN OC Graphic Card.

Intel’s second-generation Arc B580, also known as the Battlemage Series (Xe2), takes many lessons learned from their initial Alchemist lineup and mostly improves them to remain competitive in the sweetspot mid-range market (around $300). With the ability to perform light ray tracing and enough VRAM to ensure compatibility with current and future games, it mostly outperforms AMD’s Radeon RX 7600 and goes toe-to-toe with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060.

Big Blue Battlemage

The SPARKLE jettisons the utilitarian OEM look from Intel, instead opting for a industrialize-inspired triple-fan chassis done up in a striking cobalt blue body. There isn’t a soft contour to be seen with physical two slot dimensions of 12.4 x 4.61 x 1.73in (315 x 117 x 44mm) and hefty 2.1lbs (954g) weight. Compared to the standard Intel model, the TITAN OC is quite large and won’t fit in a Mini-ITX case, which might be a deal breaker if you need compactness over enhanced air cooling. Also worth noting is that RGB lighting is completely absent for a more discreet aesthetic.

Specifications shared between all Arc 580 variants are 20 Xe Cores, 20 ray tracing units,160 Intel Xe Matrix Extensions (XMX) Engines, and 160 Xe Vector Engines for raw computing capabilities. Power is supplied by a single 8-pin ATX connector and ports include one HDMI 2.1 (7680×4320/120Hz) and three DisplayPort 2.1 (7680×4320/60Hz).

All that sounds great, but what’s really important is that this GPU sports an impressive 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM with 192-bit memory interface and 456GB/s bandwidth, and non-overclocked 2670MHz graphic core clock. This places the B580 against both Nvidia’s RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti with their meager 8GB of VRAM and AMD’s underclocked Radeon RX 7600 (not the XT 16GB variant).

Test Build

Since the B580 is intended to be somewhere between an entry-level to mainstream GPU, it makes sense to view this for those aiming to build a capable gaming PC where most of their budget isn’t spent on a single component.

My test build:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 8700G processor
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6400 32GB (16GBx2)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte AORUS B650 ELITE AX ICE ATX
• GPU: SPARKLE Intel Arc B580 TITAN OC
• PSU: SUPER FLOWER LEADEX VII XG 1300W ATX3.1
• HDD/SSD: 1TB Samsung 980 Pro MVNe PCIe 4×4
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12A 120MM Cooler

 

Gaming: 1440p and Super Sampling-Focused

On that basis, the B580 is a better value as far as benchmarking is concerned versus the RTX 4060 and RX 7600, although not by huge margins as it scores slightly above or in the middle of 3Dmark’s software. It’s not a 1:1 comparison but if you can’t justify spending money on a PlayStation 5 Pro or don’t require 4K Ultra HD, the Arc B580 might be your next best option with XeSS upscaling flipped on in most cases.

What is worth talking about is the gaming performance. The B580 has little problem tackling current titles at 1440p at full speed on typical Medium or High graphic presets – so long as there are compatible drivers. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle served as a control to push the B580 to its hardest, topping out at 53FPS on with 1440p Dynamic scaling enabled, and 57FPS at 1080p Supreme regardless of whether dynamic scaling resolution is on or off.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is another new title that this GPU handled excellently at 1440p with an average of 59FPS (Extreme) or 71FPS (Extreme/XeSS), with things only getting better if you run this game on Balanced or Minimum along with any combination of super sampling. For instance, I was able to achieve 85FPS (Extreme) and 102FPS (Extreme/XeSS) when pared down to 1080p resolution. Overall, despite its lower speed and bit interface, the extra 12GB of VRAM helps immensely here.

Older games performed well enough with varying degrees of success. In some cases, the B580 is more suited to running in 1080p such as the PC version of God of War: Ragnarök at 60FPS (Ultra) and Final Fantasy XVI at 58FPS (High/XeSS Quality). Hits like Resident Evil 4 Remake and Red Dead Redemption 2 played fine at or above 60FPS with some mild tweaking either with super sampling or customized graphic settings, excluding ray tracing.

Driver (Growing) Pains

 

My experience with Intel’s Arc GPUs was limited, but the prior Alchemist models were notorious for spotty driver support, XeSS fidelity, and random crashes, and not just for games but complete system crashing. The B580 still exhibits some of those same issues, but thankfully not nearly to the extent the A580/A770 suffered from.

To be fair, there was only one instance of a total Windows crash during my two weeks of letting it run without resetting my PC, and I really had to go out of my way to find titles that either didn’t play well or start at all such as Dead Island 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Rise of The Tomb Raider. The takeaway is that older DirectX or forgotten games still need to be addressed and accounted for either by Intel or game developers themselves.

Conclusion: Cautiously Optimistic

After spending some time with the SPARKLE Arc B580 TITAN OC, I’m honestly quite enamored with Intel’s plucky Battlemage card. This is an excellent mid-range option with great 1440p performance, decent AI upscaling, and light ray tracing duties. Overall, those hoping to build a decent gaming PC on a budget will find much to like here. However, one consideration is viability; as Intel has promised to support this and newer GPUs for the foreseeable future, but work remains on getting full driver parity with the likes of Nvidia and AMD. We’ll have to see if that commitment stands, but for now there’s cautious optimism for Intel.