Intel just stole Nvidia’s lunch money with the Arc B570

Intel has just released one of the best graphics cards you can buy – the Arc B570. As you read in my Intel Arc B570 review, it delivers solid gaming performance at 1080p at a price we haven’t seen in years. But it faces stiff competition from Nvidia’s RTX 4060.

I put these two budget GPUs on a test bench to see how they perform in a variety of games, and then I’ll walk you through the results I gathered. While both cards are excellent options for under $300, Intel’s new Arc B570 is hard to argue with its price considering it’s significantly cheaper than its Nvidia rivals.

Specs and pricing

When comparing Arc B570 vs RTX 4060, price is the most important thing. That’s a sizable pricing gap — $80, or a 36% price increase — which usually indicates a huge gap in performance. But that’s not the case here. In terms of raw performance, the RTX 4060 and Arc B570 are incredibly competitive.

As far as specs go, only three things matter: power, processes, and VRAM—damn the alliteration. In terms of manufacturing process, both GPUs use TSMC, but Nvidia uses a slightly smaller node. It’s more efficient and you can see that in the power consumption rating. The RTX 4060’s power consumption is reduced by 115W, while the Arc B570’s power consumption can climb to 150W; although both cards still use a single 8-pin power connector.

VRAM marks a big shift, although it’s not as significant as the specs suggest. The Arc B570 comes with 10GB and a wider memory bus, while the RTX 4060 comes with 8GB and a thinner bus. Intel wins outright, right? Not exactly. Although the Arc B570 has higher capacity, its effective bandwidth is actually lower.

The RTX 4060 includes a small L3 cache pool to increase memory bandwidth. This is what AMD calls infinite cache. The Arc B570 has no such cache, so while Intel’s GPU has a higher capacity, the RTX 4060 and Arc B570 are essentially similar in terms of actual gaming experience. You should consider both as an 8GB graphics card, and in more demanding games like Indiana Jones and the Circle.

This is where the price of the Arc B570 is a big plus. No matter which GPU you choose from the two, you’ll need to make compromises in VRAM-intensive games, but those compromises are easier to justify with a $220 card than with a $300 card.

Game performance

Enter the benchmark. Both the RTX 4060 and Arc B570 focus on 1080p gaming performance. They may have enough power to scale to 1440p in some lighter games, but if you want the ideal experience, stick to 1080p and a high refresh rate gaming monitor. With either GPU, you can easily get over 60 frames per second (fps) in most games, except for the more demanding ones, such as Black Myth: Wukong This will require some upgrade assistance.

However, there really wasn’t a consistent trend between the games I tested. Overall, the RTX 4060 is slightly ahead, with an average lead of 6%, but keep in mind it’s also 36% more expensive. From a value perspective, there’s no doubt that Intel wins this battle with the Arc B570.

The nuance is important here, though. As you can see from the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Black Myth: Wukong, and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Edition, The Arc B570 would drop balls inexplicably during certain games. The RTX 4060 also has some games like this, especially Red Dead Redemption 2 and return, Although the decline was less severe.

What’s important here is that the RTX 4060 and Arc B570 achieved playable and sometimes excellent performance in these rigorous games at 1080p and max settings. There’s a greater emphasis on value through this metric; in many of these games, spending money on an RTX 4060 won’t result in a significantly better experience. However, there is one exception, and that is Black Myth: Wukong.

This is a great example of a cutting-edge PC experience, and Nvidia does it much better than Intel does. Given the Arc B570’s slightly lower performance, I suspect newer games will be harder and you’ll be forced to make compromises sooner than with the RTX 4060. Well, I leave this to you.

Ray tracing performance

Both the RTX 4060 and Arc B570 are capable of playing games with ray tracing, especially at 1080p, with some upscaling to help. Nvidia often ignores ray tracing performance, but that’s not actually the case. The Arc B570 and RTX 4060 results were almost identical, except return, The Arc B570 is actually way ahead.

Both GPUs can do ray tracing, and the Arc B570 performs very well. However, we are starting to see more games with full path tracing capabilities, e.g. Black Myth: Wukong and Alan Wake 2, In these games, Nvidia still has the upper hand. To be fair, I don’t think either GPU is suitable for full path tracing, but you’ll have a better chance of showing off all the visual effects on Nvidia’s GPU.

DLSS and XeSS

With this type of GPU, you’ll need to resort to some performance-enhancing features from time to time. For Intel, that’s XeSS. It’s an AI-powered upgrade utility that works across a variety of games, and Intel just released the XeSS 2 update, which adds frame generation capabilities. XeSS 2 works very well, but it has one big problem. As of this writing, it’s only available in one game.

Nvidia offers DLSS 3 for the RTX 4060, which also offers AI-assisted upscaling and frame generation. Nvidia doesn’t have an edge in quality or performance – XeSS and DLSS are basically similar – but it has a significant lead in support. DLSS is available for more than 500 games, nearly 200 of which support frame generation through DLSS 3.

This is a huge improvement over the RTX 4060, especially for a game like this Alan Wake 2 The RTX 4060 doesn’t quite hit the mark. XeSS 2 is a strong competitor, but Intel really needs to expand support before it can become a big selling point for the Arc B570.

value perspective

Value is the name of the game at this price point, and Intel delivers it with the Arc B570. This is an excellent choice for gamers who are just getting into computer gaming. Maybe you want to team up with some friends Marvel rivals, Or finally experience what a grand strategy game is Crusader Kings 3 Must be available on PC. The Arc B570 delivers this experience at a price that hasn’t been touched in several years.

However, when it comes to those prestigious gaming experiences, you need to make some compromises, such as Black Myth: Wukong. In these games, the RTX 4060 not only performs well, but also supports DLSS 3.

Because of this, the Intel Arc B570 is a win for me. It offers great value and is an easy recommendation for anyone who’s strapped for cash and looking for a modern GPU. The RTX 4060 makes sense to some, but compared to workhorses like the Arc B570, it’s more of a stepping stone into Nvidia’s more expensive options.

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