Intel just kicked off the next generation of graphics cards with the Arc B580, and it's one heck of an introduction. The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox

Intel's Battlemage graphics card generation in the first test: The Arc B580 not only has to prove its performance, but also its efficiency.

The BMG-G21 also features a 192-bit wide memory interface for GDDR6 RAM. The Limited Edition card uses 19Gbps GDDR6 chips, which give the card an effective memory bandwidth of 456GBps. The card also has 12GB of GDDR6 available, which feels like plenty based on the tests we ran.

On the other hand, Intel's Core Ultra 200V series (Lunar Lake), uses the same GPU technology for its integrated graphics (albeit stripped down to save power), and Intel's integrated GPUs technically dominate the market; XeSS 2 will run on Lunar Lake, which could be a big incentive for developers to support it.

Intel’s next — and possibly last — desktop graphics cards will begin arriving in just 10 days. Right on cue, the company has announced the budget $249 Arc B580 and $219 Arc B570, shipping December 13th and January 16th, respectively, as the “best-in-class performance per dollar” options in the GPU market.

I dread to think how bad things would have been had Intel released this Arc B580 graphics card back in the summer. All year long we've been expecting the new Battlemage GPU architecture to arrive in a new suite of discrete Intel graphics cards,

At a glance Expert's Rating Pros ・Fast frame rates at high visual quality settings ・12GB memory and bandwidth for 1440p gaming ・Low, low $249 price ・Superb ray tracing for price class (beats RTX 4060) ・Bugs and performance oddities from 1st-gen Arc GPUs have been fixed ・Uses standard 8-pin power connector ・XeSS in over 150 games ・Well-designed,