Intel confirms Arc desktop GPU launch on December 3, while Battlemage B570 leak hints that it could be a dream budget graphics card

by DTM | Posted on
  • Intel has announced an Arc launch event on December 3
  • Teaser video clearly shows a desktop GPU which must be Battlemage
  • B570 GPU spec leak suggests what to expect from the sibling of the B580

Intel has officially confirmed that there’s a big Arc GPU announcement tomorrow, on December 3, which surely must be Battlemage, as rumors have already suggested – and we’ve caught some leaked specs for the purported Arc B570 graphics card, too.

First off, let’s consider that revelation from Intel which arrived on X, with Team Blue noting that it has some “big graphics news” while providing a video giving us more clues as to what this is.

In the video clip, Intel doesn’t directly mention Battlemage, but rather this is a teaser which tells us that an Intel Arc-related announcement is coming on December 3. Given that we see a desktop graphics card from various angles in the video, clearly the revelation is for a desktop product – which can only be Battlemage.

There’s no way a new Alchemist board could be in the works, and anyway, as mentioned, this lines up with the many rumors that a Battlemage unveiling is coming on December 3. Indeed, given the weight of that speculation, perhaps Intel felt at this point it might as well (almost) confirm what’s happening this week.

The rumor mill reckons that we’ll see new Battlemage B580 and B570 graphics cards, and we’ve seen the leaked spec for the B580 already. The B570 remained a mystery, spec-wise, up until now, but as ever, treat this fresh leak with plenty of skepticism.

The leak comes via a tip from a reader of VideoCardz (which also spotted the Intel tweet above) and if correct, the B570 will run with 18 Xe2 cores and 10GB of VRAM (GDDR6) along with a 160-bit memory bus. The boost clock will hit 2.6GHz.

That’s according to a leaked product brief for ASRock’s Arc B570 Challenger OC which looks authentic enough, but as mentioned, season liberally here.

Intel Arc A7 graphics card

(Image credit: Intel)

Analysis: B500 series spec shootout – with caveats

So, how does that B570 spec compare to the B580, bearing all the usual caveats in mind about both of these being rumored specifications at this point.

In theory, the B580 is going to run with 20 Xe2 cores, so the B570 will drop a pair of cores, and the B580 supposedly has 12GB of VRAM, so the B570 will drop 2GB. Sticking with that theme, the B570 will also be 200MHz slower for its boost clock, and it will have a lesser amount of memory bandwidth to the tune of a near 17% drop.

That will, of course, make for a somewhat less powerful GPU, but the lower-tier B500 series model shouldn’t be too far off the performance of the B580.

What we’re hoping the B570 will provide is a considerably more affordable alternative, if the price rumors about the B580 are correct – namely that it could arrive at around $250 in the US (and proportionate to that elsewhere, of course). If the B570 can sneak under $200, though, with 10GB of VRAM – when Nvidia still insists on 8GB with rival models in this bracket – Intel could have a budget winner on its hands.

And more importantly, PC gamers could have a budget GPU winner on their hands, too – but there’s some road to cover yet, in terms of the accuracy of these leaks, and that big price tag reveal.

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