Intel Arc B570 review featuring the ASRock Challenger OC: A decent budget option with a few deep cuts

Trimming performance and price on the BMG-G21 GPU.

ASRock Arc B570 Challenger OC
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

Tom's Hardware Verdict

The Intel Arc B570 does well as a budget 1080p graphics card, but if fails to live up to the standards set by the Arc B580. The trimmed clocks and cores aren't the problem, it's the reduced memory and bandwidth that holds the B570 back.

Pros

  • +

    Good value overall

  • +

    10GB is more than 8GB

  • +

    Strong 1080p performance

Cons

  • -

    Arc B580 delivers better FPS per dollar

  • -

    Can run out of VRAM at 1440p and above

  • -

    Driver concerns remain

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The Intel Arc B570 picks up where the Arc B580 left off, namely with an even lower price point of $219. On paper, that's 12% cheaper, but it also comes with a 10% reduction in core counts, 3.5% lower clocks, and most importantly a 17% reduction in VRAM capacity and bandwidth. If you're trying to save money it might be worth considering, but the value proposition isn't as strong as the B580. It will compete with the best graphics cards of the rising generation, but only by virtue of very likely being the least expensive new GPU that we'll see in the coming year.

We've covered the Intel Battlemage architecture and the Arc B-series GPUs already. Now it's time to see how the B570 stacks up in real-world testing. Shaving $30 off the price while also cutting the memory by 2GB may not be the best solution for gaming or AI usage going forward. But let's start with the specifications.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Graphics CardArc B570Arc B580Arc A770 16GBArc A750Arc A580
ArchitectureBMG-G21BMG-G21ACM-G10ACM-G10ACM-G10
Process TechnologyTSMC N5TSMC N5TSMC N6TSMC N6TSMC N6
Transistors (Billion)19.619.621.721.721.7
Die size (mm^2)272272406406406
Xe-Cores1820322824
GPU Shaders (ALUs)23042560409635843072
XMX Cores144160512448384
Ray Tracing Cores1820322824
Boost Clock (MHz)27502850240024001700
VRAM Speed (Gbps)191917.51616
VRAM (GB)10121688
VRAM Bus Width160192256256256
L2 Cache13.518161616
Render Output Units8080128128128
Texture Mapping Units144160256224192
TFLOPS FP32 (Boost)12.714.619.717.210.4
TFLOPS FP16 (INT8 TOPS)101 (203)117 (233)157 (315)138 (275)84 (167)
Bandwidth (GB/s)380456560512512
TBP (watts)150190225225185
Launch DateJan 2025Dec 2024Oct 2022Oct 2022Oct 2023
Launch Price$219$249$349$289$179
Online Price$220$341$300$190$170

As noted already, the Arc B5780 takes the same BMG-G21 core and trims a few functional units, with a lower core clock as well. The resulting card ends up with 13% less theoretical compute and 17% less memory bandwidth — and also 17% less memory capacity.

We haven't seen very many 10GB graphics cards over the year. There was the original RTX 3080, and more recently AMD's RX 6700 (non-XT), and that's basically it. We know there are quite a few modern games that can exceed 8GB of VRAM use, so the B570 may have a bit more wiggle room. However, lossless memory compression techniques in GPUs can also have an impact, so raw capacity isn't the final word.

Considering the Arc B580 ended up outperforming the prior generation Arc A770 by around 20%, we expect the new B570 to be slightly faster than the A770 as well. Except, higher resolutions where the extra VRAM capacity and bandwidth come into play will likely still favor the older GPU. Not that you'd really want to pick up an A770 16GB, considering they're now selling at $300 or more again.

Intel gives the Arc B570 a Graphics Clock of 2500 MHz, with a maximum boost clock of 2750 MHz. We noticed with the B580 that all the cards, including factory overclocked models, seemed to keep the maximum boost clock, and that appears to be the case with the B570 as well. Without manual overclocking, you'll get 2750 MHz peak performance, and in practice nearly every game and application we tested hit that clock speed.

Asus RX 6600 Dual V3

(Image credit: Asus)

Given the $219 MSRP, the Arc B570 will primarily face off against existing GPUs from AMD and Nvidia. Nvidia hasn't made a sub-$249 graphics card since the RTX 3050 8GB debuted in early 2022, three years ago. It now goes for $200, while supplies remain. There's also a more recent RTX 3050 6GB card as well, which we haven't tested, that sells for $170.

But we never particularly cared for the RTX 3050 cards. They were too slow for ray tracing to be a selling point, and in rasterization performance AMD's RX 6600 was clearly superior — it even competes with the higher spec RTX 3060 12GB. Our RX 6600 vs RTX 3050 GPU faceoff ended up being a clear victory for the RX 6600, mostly based on its superior performance. Despite being over three years old, the RX 6600 remains readily available, with prices starting at $190.

Time constraints (with holiday breaks and CES travels) meant we couldn't test every GPU we'd like to include for this review. We'll have the same cards as the Arc B580, plus a couple of additions (RTX 3060 and RX 6600). But before we get to the benchmarks, let's take a closer look at the ASRock Arc B570 Challenger OC we received for review.

Jarred Walton

Jarred Walton is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on everything GPU. He has been working as a tech journalist since 2004, writing for AnandTech, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance.

  • Gururu
    If this becomes more available than the b580, I would happily put this into my little brother or sister's new build. $200-250 is absolutely budget and I guess the performance is better than integrated solutions.
    Reply
  • GenericUser2001
    Any thoughts on doing a performance test of this and the B580 using a more budget processor? Quite a few other websites have been retesting the B580 and found that it has some sort of driver overhead issues, and when paired with more modest CPU like a Ryzen 5600 the B580 often ends up falling behind a Radeon 7600 or Geforce 4060 on the same games it leads in when paired with a high end CPU.
    Reply
  • Elusive Ruse
    Thanks for the review Jarred, I like that you don’t skip higher resolutions and RT which might not be as relevant for a budget GPU but in my opinion they offer good insight on overall improvement gen-on-gen.

    The price point is pretty good and I think many buyers would rather buy a new release with potential to get higher performance in the future with better drivers than buying a used card or an older generation card for the same money and performance.
    Reply
  • das_stig
    am I misinterpreting the chart or why buy a B5x0 when the A7x0 is superior in most things including price, except for extra wattage and boost clock?
    Reply
  • Notton
    das_stig said:
    am I misinterpreting the chart or why buy a B5x0 when the A7x0 is superior in most things including price, except for extra wattage and boost clock?
    If you're looking at the same charts I am looking at, yes.
    B570 > A750, B580 > A770 at a majority of games.
    There are some exceptions where this flips around on some settings, like TLoU 1080p ultra, but reverts to B570 being dominant at 1080p medium.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    B570 Doesn't really outperform an RTX 3060. That a bummer, even at $200.
    Reply
  • eye4bear
    Day before yesterday I managed to order and pick-up after work one of only 3 B580s at the Miami Micro Center, and the other two were gone yesterday on their web-site. Worked late last evening, so haven't had a chance yet to install it. Replacing an Arc A380. If I find out anything interesting, will let you all know.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    GenericUser2001 said:
    Any thoughts on doing a performance test of this and the B580 using a more budget processor? Quite a few other websites have been retesting the B580 and found that it has some sort of driver overhead issues, and when paired with more modest CPU like a Ryzen 5600 the B580 often ends up falling behind a Radeon 7600 or Geforce 4060 on the same games it leads in when paired with a high end CPU.
    It all takes time, the one thing I definitely don't have right now. There's a reason RTX 3050 isn't in the charts either. LOL. But eventually, it's something I'd like to investigate... and will probably be stale before I could get around to it. Because it's time to start testing the extreme GPUs in preparation for RTX 5090 and 5080. And after that? The high-end cards in preparation for RTX 5070 Ti and 5070, plus RX 9070 XT and 9070.

    I should have more ability to do off the beaten path testing in about two months, in other words. <sigh> But it's good to be busy, even if we don't have enough time between getting cards and the launch dates.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    Thanks for the comprehensive data as always, Jarred.

    And kind of sad the conclusion from most people reviewing it is: "well, the B580 is the better pick if you can find it at MSRP". I wonder if Intel can make this card hit a lower price point? I mean, without actually losing money. Sounds tricky to do.

    And I'm surprised OBS didn't work for you. I would have imagined they'd be exposing the capabilities of Battlemage the same way as Alchemist for the encoders. Well, I hope a patch is coming, since that's a big miss for me at least :(

    Regards.
    Reply
  • rluker5
    I've got a B580 and noticed a couple of bugs in overclocking.
    1. my PC doesn't like to wake from sleep with an overclock applied to the B580. It will wake, not be happy and restart which turns off the oc. No problem if no oc. I am running a pretty heavy undervolt on my 13900kf and it is stable in everything else, but maybe is giving this particular boot issue. Also not a fresh OS install.
    2. The ram oc usually doesn't take 21 Gbs right away. I have to do 20, sometimes 20.1 then it takes 21 and the change shows up in GPUZ and everything else.

    I just thought of the ram oc finickyness reading this article and how I would want to oc vram if I had a B570. Hopefully few others have these issues but I'm seeing them so I brought them up.

    Also my B580 has been a bunch faster than my A750 in the few games I've played on it.
    Reply