TheIntel Arc B580is considered the cheapest modern GPU on the market today, withTom’s Hardwareconsidering it the $249 GPU champion. However, several reviewers discovered that the budget GPU performs poorly on older processors. Intel has acknowledged the issue and will investigate it.
A moderator on theIntel Community forumstarted an Intel Arc Graphics and CPU Overhead thread, saying, “Thank you for your patience. We are aware of reports of performance sensitivity in some games when paired with older generation processors. We have increased our platform coverage to include more configurations in our validation process, and we are continuing to investigate optimizations.”
Reviewers first noticed the issue in early January, when they tested the Intel Arc B580 on older and newer CPUs. For example,Hardware Unboxedran some gamingbenchmarkswith the GPU using an AMDRyzen 7 9800X3Dand aRyzen 5 2600. It also used anNvidia GeForce RTX 4060as a control, and these are its results.
Intel Arc B580 + Ryzen 7 9800X3D (FPS)
Nvidia RTX 4060 + Ryzen 7 9800X3D (FPS)
Intel Arc B580 + Ryzen 5 2600 (FPS)
Nvidia RTX 4060 + Ryzen 5 2600 (FPS)
62
74
16.22%
31
52
40.38%
240
309
22.33%
212
223
4.93%
71
70
-1.43%
34
34.62%
40
50
20.00%
24
44
45.45%
152
127
-19.69%
46
78
41.03%
113
126
10.32%
69.4
89.8
22.72%
The Intel Arc B580 performs decently enough when paired with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, with the RTX 4060 outperforming it by around 10% on average. However, the performance gap between the two entry-level desktop GPUs widens when paired with the much older Ryzen 5 2600. The RTX 4060 now gets a 22% advantage over the Intel graphics card, with some games returning an unplayable 30 FPS or lower. Note that this doesn’t include 1% low numbers, which are much worse for the B580.
Hopefully, Intel can find a fix for this issue sooner rather than later, mainly as it affects the core market of the Intel Arc B580 — budget gamers. You might think that buying the B580 to replace your oldGTX 1060, which was still themost popular GPU on Steam as late as 2022, will finally let you play some newer games. But you might be disappointed with this overhead issue, as it will preclude you from playing some game titles without upgrading your CPU.
This might not be too big of a problem if you already have an AM4 motherboard, especially as AMD is stillreleasing new chips for this socket in 2025. But if you have an AM3+ or older motherboard (or older Intel chips), you’ll likely need to spend on a new CPU and motherboard, increasing the cost of upgrading your system to play the latest titles. And withtariffs jacking up prices everywhere, this might mean you cannot afford to play newer games at all.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
