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The Intel Arc B580 12 GB and the AMD RX 7600 XT 16 GB each have shaken up the entry-level gaming segment in their right. The cards are slightly spaced out in terms of their position in the market, but they share more in common than you think. You get an impressive video memory buffer with both while they bring excellent 1080p and 1440p performance to the table.
We looked at the two GPUs in great detail to figure out which is the better deal for most gamers. Read on to find out a dissection of the on-paper specs and the performance details between the two.
The Intel Arc B580 12 GB and AMD RX 7600 XT 16 GB are some of the best budget gaming GPUs today
Before delving into the performance differences between the two graphics cards, let's look at what each brings to the table and why you should consider taking them as a serious alternative to other options in the $300 range.
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Specs comparison
In terms of the on-paper specs, both cards are filled to the brim with graphics hardware. You get the latest from both companies, Battlemage and RDNA 3.0 architectures, which bring the latest improvements in efficiency, rasterization, and ray tracing performance.
The Arc B580 12 GB is powered by the BMG-G21 graphics processor, which is the only GPU launched in the new architecture so far. You get 20 Xe2 cores and a total of 19.6 billion transistors. While the die size has significantly reduced from the last generation, it remains significantly large at 272 mm², which leads to the card drawing more power to deliver similar performance levels.
The 7600 XT is powered by the Navi 33 graphics processor, which is a cut-down version of the higher-end Navi 31 and 32 chips. You get 2048 shading cores and 32 ray tracing units with the card.
Coming to the VRAM buffer, the AMD card has the upper hand in terms of capacity. It packs 16 GB of VRAM, which is massive for its target price of $329. However, the memory is limited to a 128-bit bus which keeps the bandwidth limited to just 288 GB/s.
In comparison, even with the smaller 12 GB VRAM capacity, the Arc B580 manages to push the total bandwidth to 456 GB/s thanks to its 192-bit bus width.
All of this finally culminates in the Arc B580 having a higher theoretical performance estimate than the costlier AMD GPU. While the Intel graphics card has been rated for 13.67 TFLOPS, the RX 7600 XT is supposedly only capable of just 11.3 TFLOPS.
Here's a look at the specs lists of the two GPUs:
The prices of the two cards differ by about $80. While the Arc B580 12 GB is priced competitively at $249, AMD has positioned its 7600 XT at $329. This difference can be a lot for entry-level gamers, especially if we consider spending patterns in emerging markets.
Performance comparison
Performance is often the defining factor for many gamers when choosing between GPUs, more so in the entry-level segment. However, the performance logged by the two cards isn't consistent with what we saw in the specs comparison. We'll let the numbers speak before coming up with a possible explanation.
Below are the framerates achieved by the B580 12 GB and the 7600 XT in some of the latest titles. We sourced these numbers from the YouTube channel Mark PC.
On average, the RTX 4060 Ti is about 10.9% faster than the Arc B580 12 GB while the RX 7600 XT delivers just 2.3% more performance despite costing $80 more.
According to theoretical estimates, the $249 Arc B580 is supposed to be about 20.97% faster than the 7600 XT. We don't see such gains in video games, however. This can be explained by Intel's continued struggles with driver optimization.
In a few titles, we indeed see the B580 pull off better framerates than the AMD GPU. However, it fails to consistently do so despite having a clear lead in terms of hardware.
In conclusion, the Intel and AMD cards are quite close to each other in terms of performance. The gap between them isn't large enough to justify the $80 price difference. For budget players, the Arc B580 is our recommendation.
If you're looking for the extra VRAM and have the extra cash, opting for the 7600 XT could seem more lucrative. However, we urge you to consider the more capable and cheaper RTX 4060.
