Intel Arc B580 massively underperforms when paired with older CPUs

Why it matters: Intel's Battlemage Arc B580 graphics card has been a massive hit with reviewers and users alike. We even called it the best value GPU in the market in our review, but a new report suggests that its impressive performance may be limited to newer CPUs.

According to an YouTube video by Hardware Canucks, the Battlemage Arc B580 suffers from massive performance issues in many games, causing stuttering and low frame rates when paired with CPUs older than five years.

The channel tested the Arc B580 with an Intel Core i5-9600K - a relatively older processor released in 2018 - and found that the performance in some games, including Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered and Starfield, was so bad that they were almost unplayable.

Unfortunately, the B580's reduced performance isn't an isolated incident with 9th-gen Intel Core CPUs, as the issue apparently persists with other processors. A video by our very own Sam Walton on the Hardware Unboxed YouTube channel confirmed that the GPU has similar problems when paired with a Ryzen 5 2600X.

According to Hardware Unboxed's testing, the B580 performed much worse than the RTX 4060 in games like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 when paired with either a Ryzen 7 9800X3D or a Ryzen 5 2600. In fact, with the latter, the average frame rates hit just 31 FPS, while the 1 percent lows dipped to 25 FPS, making the game almost unplayable.

A similar result was seen in Hogwart's Legacy, where the B580 was around 46 percent slower than the 4060, averaging only 24 FPS. Starfield was also a poor result for the B580, as it was about 45 percent slower than the RTX 4060 with the Ryzen 5 2600.

However, the problem seems limited to a handful of titles, as the B580's performance in many other games is along expected lines. For example, in titles such as Alan Wake 2, Doom Eternal, Horizon: Forbidden West, and even Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the B580 offers playable frame rates when paired with the i5 9600K.

It is worth noting that all Arc graphics cards need Resizable BAR (ReBAR) and Smart Access Memory (SAM) support, which is why Intel only recommends its 10th-generation Core CPUs or newer and AMD Ryzen 3000 or newer for Alchemist and Battlemage. However, the systems tested above had ReBAR backported and enabled, suggesting that the problem lies somewhere else.

It is unclear whether this is an architectural issue or a driver-related problem that can be addressed via a future update. Intel is said to be aware of the issues and is already investigating, so perhaps we can expect an answer sooner rather than later.