The $180 Intel Arc A580 is Team Blue’s new budget GPU, and it’s a mixed bag. On the one hand, it offers decent performance for the price, and it’s the first budget GPU from Intel to come with serious ray tracing capabilities. On the other hand, it’s not much cheaper than Intel’s own Arc A750, which offers significantly better performance. Additionally, the Arc A580’s drivers are still under development, and they can be buggy in some games.
Overall, the Intel Arc A580 is a solid budget GPU, but it’s not the best choice for everyone. If you’re on a tight budget, it’s worth considering the Nvidia RTX 3050 or the AMD RX 6600, which are both slightly cheaper and offer similar performance. But if you’re looking for the best possible performance for under $200, the Intel Arc A750 is the better choice.
Performance
The Intel Arc A580 is a capable 1080p gaming GPU. In benchmarks, it performs slightly ahead of the Nvidia RTX 3050 and the AMD RX 6600 in most games. However, the gap in performance is relatively small, and the Arc A580 can struggle to maintain a consistent frame rate in some more demanding games.
Benchmark results from Tom’s Hardware:
Game | Resolution | Intel Arc A580 | Nvidia RTX 3050 | AMD RX 6600 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cyberpunk 2077 | 1080p | 50 FPS | 45 FPS | 47 FPS |
Red Dead Redemption 2 | 1080p | 60 FPS | 57 FPS | 59 FPS |
Control | 1080p | 70 FPS | 65 FPS | 68 FPS |
Forza Horizon 5 | 1080p | 100 FPS | 95 FPS | 98 FPS |
As you can see, the Intel Arc A580 performs slightly ahead of the Nvidia RTX 3050 and the AMD RX 6600 in most of these games. However, the difference in performance is relatively small, and the Arc A580 can struggle to maintain a consistent frame rate in some more demanding games, such as Cyberpunk 2077.
If you’re looking for the best possible performance at 1080p resolution, the Intel Arc A750 is the better choice. However, if you’re on a tight budget, the Intel Arc A580 is a good option, and it offers better performance than the Nvidia RTX 3050 and the AMD RX 6600.
It’s important to note that the Intel Arc A580’s drivers are still under development, and they can be buggy in some games. Intel is actively working on improving the drivers, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re considering buying this GPU.
Ray tracing
The Intel Arc A580 is the first budget GPU to come with serious ray tracing capabilities. However, its ray tracing performance is still not quite on par with Nvidia’s RTX 3050 or AMD’s RX 6600. That said, the Arc A580 can still deliver a good ray tracing experience in most games at 1080p resolution.
Ray tracing benchmark results from Tom’s Hardware:
Game | Resolution | Intel Arc A580 | Nvidia RTX 3050 | AMD RX 6600 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cyberpunk 2077 | 1080p | 30 FPS | 35 FPS | 32 FPS |
Control | 1080p | 40 FPS | 45 FPS | 42 FPS |
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition | 1080p | 45 FPS | 50 FPS | 47 FPS |
As you can see, the Intel Arc A580 performs slightly behind the Nvidia RTX 3050 and the AMD RX 6600 in most of these games. However, the difference in performance is relatively small, and the Arc A580 can still deliver a playable ray tracing experience in most games at 1080p resolution.
If you’re looking for the best possible ray tracing performance at 1080p resolution, the Nvidia RTX 3050 or the AMD RX 6600 are the better choices. However, if you’re on a tight budget, the Intel Arc A580 is a good option, and it offers better ray tracing performance than the previous generation of budget GPUs.
It’s also worth noting that Intel is actively working on improving the Arc A580’s ray tracing performance. As such, we can expect to see its ray tracing performance improve in future driver updates.
Drivers
The Intel Arc A580’s drivers are still under development, and they can be buggy in some games. Intel is actively working on improving the drivers, but it’s still something to keep in mind if you’re considering buying this GPU.
Some of the issues that have been reported with the Arc A580’s drivers include:
- Crashes in some games
- Performance issues in some games
- Incompatibility with some software
Intel is working to fix all of these issues, but it’s not clear when they will be all resolved. If you’re considering buying an Arc A580, it’s important to be aware of these potential issues and to check Intel’s website regularly for driver updates.
Tips for troubleshooting driver issues with the Intel Arc A580:
- Make sure that you have the latest drivers installed. You can download the latest drivers from Intel’s website.
- Try uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers.
- Try running the game in compatibility mode. To do this, right-click on the game’s executable file and select “Properties.” Then, click on the “Compatibility” tab and select “Run this program in compatibility mode for.”
- Try running the game with administrator privileges. To do this, right-click on the game’s executable file and select “Run as administrator.”
- If you’re still having problems, you can try contacting Intel support for help.
Overall, the Intel Arc A580 is a promising budget GPU, but it’s important to be aware of the potential driver issues. If you’re not comfortable troubleshooting driver issues, you may want to wait until the drivers are more mature before buying an Arc A580.
Pricing
The Intel Arc A580 is priced at $180. This is slightly more expensive than the Nvidia RTX 3050 and the AMD RX 6600, which are both priced at $170. However, the Arc A580 offers slightly better performance and better ray tracing capabilities.