Intel Arc B570 vs. AMD Radeon RX 7600

It’s time for AMD and Intel to butt heads once again, as the newly-launched Arc B570 encroaches on Radeon RX 7600’s long-established turf. This fresh face is similar in many ways to its disruptive sibling, Arc B580, but trades in some performance for an even lower price point of £219 / $219.

Of course, cheaper doesn’t always equate to higher value so let’s explore how these budget pixel pushers stack up against one another.

Specs

Both Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600 are the most affordable but least-powerful graphics cards in their respective families, Battlemage and RDNA 3.

Intel once again arrives to the table with a more robust memory configuration than AMD has to offer. Arc B570 exceeds Radeon RX 7600 in every way that matters in this regard, with 10GB of VRAM and 160-bit interface, culminating in a memory bandwidth of 380GB/s. These credentials should afford the Battlemage graphics card more room to breathe than its rival while rendering ray traced effects, high-resolution textures, or gaming beyond FHD (1080p).

Arc B570 claims another victory over Radeon RX 7600 in terms of TBP as 15W separates the more frugal contender from its opponent (150W vs. 165W). Regardless, this doesn’t describe real-world power consumption which sees the tables turn later in this comparison.

Finally, Arc B570 also boasts higher reference base and boost clock speeds than Radeon RX 7600. Many models will sport overclocks out of the box, though, including the ASRock Challenger OC and Sapphire Pulse cards used in this comparison. More importantly, comparing frequencies across different GPUs rarely if ever reveals anything of note in terms of relative performance. There’s simply no better way to know which of the two has the edge without benchmarks so let’s dive in.

Performance

To size up Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600, I’ve put each graphics card through its paces in the Club386 test bench complete with a Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU. This isn’t a processor I’d expect anyone to pair either pixel pusher with but it does allow each to flex their capabilities unhindered. It’s important to note that Battlemage GPUs run unexpectedly slower with older CPUs, potentially hampering their value running on older platforms.

Our 7950X3D Test PCs

Club386 carefully chooses each component in a test bench to best suit the review at hand. When you view our benchmarks, you’re not just getting an opinion, but the results of rigorous testing carried out using hardware we trust.

Shop Club386 test platform components:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
Motherboard: MSI MEG X670E ACE
Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 A-RGB
Memory: 64GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5
Storage: 2TB WD_Black SN850X NVMe SSD
PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1,300W
Chassis: Fractal Design Torrent Grey

Build Log

How We Test

I’ve skipped 4K (2160p) resolution for our benchmarks, instead keeping to FHD (1080p) and QHD (1440p). Considering the bandwidths and buffers of each card, neither have the chops to realistically tackle anything beyond these resolutions.

Benchmarks

Despite boasting improved second-generation AI Engines, Arc B570 can’t keep up with Radeon RX 7600’s AI accelerators in Geekbench AI. The gap between the two cards isn’t small either, with AMD’s budget champ charging ahead with an enormous 53% lead over Intel’s score.

Arc B570 punches above its weight in 3DMark Speed Way. While the Battlemage graphics card doesn’t take the crown in the ray traced benchmark, it nips at the heels of Radeon RX 7600, falling short by just 120 points. Meanwhile, 3DMark Steel Nomad sees the Intel GPU pull ahead by a more comfortable 322 points against its AMD rival.

Impressive as these results are they aren’t necessarily indicative of real-world performance as will become self-evident. Instead, treat these synthetic scores as broad estimations of each cards’ capabilities.

Gaming

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a tale of two benchmarks for Arc B570. At QHD (1440p), it’s neck-and-neck with Radeon RX 7600 with just 2fps separating the cards. Unfortunately, it can’t maintain the same pace following a drop in resolution to FHD (1080p) as AMD extends its lead to 14fps.

This pattern isn’t unique to Ubisoft’s title but serves as the first example of CPU overhead issues that potentially plague all Intel Arc B Series graphics cards, including Arc B580.

It’s difficult to assess the true performance difference between Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600 in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 due to strange incompatibilities with the game’s Variable Rate Shading (VRS) option. Intel’s card does support the feature on paper but the game doesn’t recognise this as being the case.

Without VRS to pick up some of the rendering slack, Arc B570 finds itself well behind Radeon RX 7600. This issue first presented itself with the debut of Arc B580 and remains unaddressed by either Activision or Intel, with no indication as to when a fix will arrive. Suffice to say, Battlemage compatibility is decidedly better than Alchemist but not entirely without problems.

Higher memory bandwidth and buffer size undoubtedly give Arc B570 the edge over Radeon RX 7600 in Cyberpunk 2077 using the game’s RT Ultra preset. While AMD’s offering fails to produce playable frame rates at FHD, Intel earns a passing grade with a 34fps average. However, neither graphics card has the pixel pushing power to run the RPG at native QHD.

Both Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600 can leverage upscaling, namely XeSS and FSR, to relieve some of the strain. They can each call upon FSR Frame Generation to further boost performance too. I’m hopeful that XeSS Frame Generation will make its way to Night City but there’s no indication it will at the time of writing. This also speaks to the relatively low adoption rate of Intel’s technologies relative to AMD’s which should improve over time but isn’t prevalent at present.

Frame rate consistency remains an issue on Arc B570, as it has with other Intel GPUs including Battlemage. This is most noticeable at FHD, where the card’s minimum of 46fps is markedly lower than its 112fps average. By comparison, Radeon RX 7600 provides a more consistent experience with a 72/122fps split.

The battle between the two cards becomes much closer at QHD, with B570 actually outperforming Radeon RX 7600 by 5fps. Consistency also becomes less of a problem at this resolution, with each delivering 44-45fps minimums.

Forza Motorsport is the most taxing benchmark in the suite for both cards, pushing their memory configurations to the limit with a myriad of ray traced effects. To be clear, both cards run the risk of memory leaks at these settings regardless of resolution. However, it’s clear that Arc B570 is worse off in this scenario than Radeon RX 7600.

Arc B570 delivers a higher average frame rate than Radeon RX 7600 at FHD but its performance isn’t as consistent, with minimum frame rates much lower than its rival. The card then effectively burns rubber at QHD, falling behind despite its larger bandwidth and buffer. It’s clear to me that CPU overhead issues seen earlier are at play here too.

Switching back to rasterised rendering, Arc B570 puts up a decent fight against Radeon RX 7600 Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. There don’t appear to be any issues at play here, allowing Intel’s card to deliver relatively strong frame rates considering its lower price point.

As a reminder, a reference Arc B570 costs $219 / £219 compared to Radeon RX 7600’s $269 / £269 MSRP. That said, you will find the latter card at lower prices now given its age and its 9060 Series replacement due later this year. This makes blanket assessments of value difficult but worth bearing in mind for any potential purchases.

Triple-digit frame rates galore; both Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600 make short work of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction at both FHD and QHD. Again, Intel’s GPU holds its own better at the higher resolution but isn’t as consistent.

Efficiency

There’s no clear victor between Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600 when it comes to power consumption. Under load, the crown goes to Intel as its GPU pulls 30W less from the wall. Meanwhile, AMD takes the lead as each card sits idle, demanding 24W fewer.

It’s disappointing to see that Intel hasn’t addressed problems of high idle power draw. These issues have been around since the company’s A Series, and I’d hoped they’d be nixed by now. There’s still time for drivers or firmware to serve as a remedy but there’s no sign of anything just yet.

There’s no reference cooler design available for Arc B570, leaving it to board partners to craft their own. ASRock’s Challenger OC does an exemplary job of keeping the Battlemage GPU cool under load, separating its from Radeon RX 7600 by a whopping 14°C.

With noise profiles below 35db, both Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600 are quiet graphics cards. Though 2db separates each in our tests, it’s honestly difficult to tell the difference without the aid of measuring tools.

Upscaling

Like Arc B580 before it, support for Intel’s XeSS 2 suite comes part and parcel with Arc B570. This includes the XeSS-SR (Super Resolution) and XeSS-FG (Frame Generation), in addition to XeLL (Low Latency). These features aim to close the gap between FSR 3, offering theoretically better image quality thanks to machine learning.

Adoption of XeSS 2 is ongoing, with F1 24 serving as the only example at the time of writing. Marvel Rivals and other titles will soon adopt the suite but the lack of comparison points limits any assessments of the tech to the racing title alone. As such, let’s examine how Intel’s AI enhancements bolster Arc B570 performance.

XeSS-SR and XeSS-FG can run independently of one another, providing a respective uplift of 61% and 78% relative to native QHD frame rates. However, the technologies come together to offer more than the sum of their parts working in tandem, delivering an enormous 282% improvement. It’s a remarkable boost that also delivers superior image quality than FSR to my eye.

The higher fidelity of XeSS only matters if it’s available though and FSR has the edge in terms of prevalence. I personally place a large amount of value in upscaling options, making this a tough-call but it’s worth keeping in mind depending on your preferences.

Conclusion

$50 / £50 separates the MSRP of Arc B570 and Radeon RX 7600 but the realities of the current graphics card market see this gap narrow to more like $30 / £30. This small difference in price makes it more difficult to justify the relative value of Intel’s offering even with its superior memory configuration, but feels almost impossible taking issues of CPU overhead and frame rate consistency into account.

That’s if you can find Arc B570 available at its MSRP, as overclocked models like ASRock Challenger OC command higher price points that come even closer to or mirror discounted Radeon RX 7600. The maths simply don’t add up in Intel’s favour and AMD emerges the better value choice, particularly for those with older processors.

Arc B570 clearly shows potential in games like Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and Cyberpunk 2077, but these instances are too few and far between. Perhaps Intel can bring its graphics card up to speed through updates but you should never buy anything based on promises.

Radeon RX 7600 emerges the overall victor in the present, despite its higher price tag. If you can’t stretch your budget beyond an Arc B570 then it’s by no means a wasted purchase but you must prepare yourself to deal with an unfortunate basket of quirks.

Intel Arc B570

“Arc B570 packs an attractive 10GB VRAM buffer at a low price, but it struggles to provide tangible value relative to its Battlemage sibling and rival graphics cards.” Read our review.

Buy from Amazon

AMD Radeon RX 7600

“AMD does succeed in providing solid FHD credentials at an amenable price point, though continued sub-par ray tracing remains a worry for games.” Read our review.

Buy from Amazon