ASRock is once again in the spotlight for leaked Arc Battlemage GPUs as Challenger B570 has been pictured by a reviewer who got it much earlier. Not a bad play to keep the hype running, drawing attention away from Nvidia and AMD’s impending launches.
It appears that Intel’s upcoming Arc B570 GPUs are already being sent to reviewers, as @aschilling from Hardware Luxx has shared pictures of a card’s box from ASRock. As a reminder, Arc B570 reviews are set to release on January 16, so this is unusual even for samples. Some rumours claim that Intel is considering lifting the embargo sooner, which would explain the rush, but nothing is sure.
On one hand, this leaves more time for reviewers to test each aspect of Intel’s new GPU. On the other, it risks performance figures leaking. There’s also the added headache of ensuring scores and frame rates are accurate with beta drivers. That said, we don’t expect any surprises since B570 isn’t drastically different from the B580 we already reviewed. Based on the latter, we can make an informed guess on its performance.
If we factor in its 10% smaller GPU packing 18 Xe2 cores, 6% lower frequency, and 16% tighter memory bandwidth, we anticipate B570 to sit between 10% and 15% behind the B580. Perhaps lightly behind last-gen Arc A750. This is also corroborated by its $219 MSRP price tag which is 12% less than B580’s $249.
Thankfully Intel didn’t skimp on VRAM, shoving 10GB of GDD6 in this low/mid-range model. This means that even modern games should run fine at 1080p using high-quality textures. Lastly, though not yet at the efficiency level of Nvidia’s offerings, B570 seems perfect for an old-machine upgrade. The price isn’t high enough to make it a silly choice, and the 150W power target is low enough to run on 400W-ish PSUs. Even the power cable is still the good old eight-pin.
Intel has a potential winner on its hands that many will be more than happy to get. The $200 range seemed forgotten in recent years, and we are happy to see it back.
