A Week with the ASRock Challenger Arc B580
How does Intel's latest Battlemage card hold up? Here's a casual, day-to-day look.
The following ASRock Challenger Arc B580 was purchased by the author and was not provided by the manufacturer.
I don’t think I’ve ever owned a display adapter that hasn’t been used more than thrice. I say this because it made me realise that the last time I purchased a new graphics card was quite literally eight years ago—and that GTX 1070 has gone from PC build to build, landing right into my latest AMD build. That card has pulled it weight far more than I’ve ever seen from a component in the PC sphere, where up to that point it wasn’t unusual to swap GPUs every four years or so (maybe even sooner!) for enthusiast builds. Naturally, as these cards lasted longer and longer, their prices also shot up and through the moon. That 1070 of mine stuck around as long as it did because really, I couldn’t justify blowing an upward of a thousand dollars for a new Nvidia GPU. And considering my experience with AMD/ATI in the past, I wasn’t exactly ready to try out the only other competitor in the graphics space, so I chose to wait for the RTX 5000 series.
Plus, my GTX 1070 was running games just fine even today. I had no real reason to look into an upgrade.
But waiting stinks. And Intel has recently been making inroads into the GPU sphere of things, most recently with the announcement and release of the Intel Arc Battlemage cards: the B570 and the B580. The latter card maxed out at a $250 USD price point, a target my eyes have nary graced in nearly a decade. Considering the games I had been playing now have been struggling with image quality even at 1080p, I figured it was worth the shot.
There’s something oddly magical about having a dedicated graphics processor in your PC that isn’t Nvidia or AMD. Granted, it’s not like there were tens of hundreds of competitors in the field, but the likes of Matrox and 3dfx were there. They’ve been gone now with the only other notable graphics team being Intel’s. But their work was largely for their integrated graphics and anyone familiar with their HD series of things knew those were far behind the likes of AMD’s up until the Intel Iris Xe graphics—the high-end variant of which you’re looking at right now. This is the Intel Arc B580 with ASRock’s customisations on top, most of which are design related and with a slight uptick to the boost clocks:
| Specs thanks to Techpowerup.com | Intel Arc B580 | ASRock Challenger Arc B580 |
| Base Clock | 2670 MHz | 2670 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 2670 MHz | 2740 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 2375 MHZ | 2375 MHz |
| Memory Size, Type, and Bus | 12GB GDDR6 192-bit | 12GB GDDR6 192-bit |
| Tensor Cores | 160 | 160 |
| RT Cores | 20 | 20 |
By all counts, the B580 performs just a bit better than Nvidia’s RTX 4060 cards and for a good fifty dollars or so less, has more Video RAM than the average card in this price range, and features Tensor and RT cores, which enhances the Intel XeSS suite of software used in some games. And being the second generation of dedicated GPUs by Intel, I was hoping that any potential kinks may have been ironed out by now. So, I swooped in a Newegg order while the B580s were available and installed it the day it came in, which was a good 10 days or so by the time of this writing. The ASRock card is a tiny little thing compared to my old 1070, with a reflective back cover and sleek design—with the cooling features double fans and an aluminium heatsink. Hardware installation was much more pleasant compared to my 1070 in my current build and snapped into the PCI-e slot with ease.
The real issue began with getting the blasted thing to output an image. I’ve swapped GPUs before with no issues. Heck, I’ve concurrently run Nvidia and AMD display adapters with absolutely no issues whatsoever in the past. But the B580 wouldn’t budge and only displayed video once I reset my CMOS battery. I’m not sure what the problem exactly was, but from what I gather the Intel Arc cards rely on resizable BAR as a motherboard feature. Something to keep in mind is that this card might not work with your older motherboard, which stinks a bit for me as it does limit what parts I can use the B580 with once I retire the unit. Either way, once I was able to get a picture, I uninstalled the old Nvidia drivers with DDU and installed Intel’s Arc drivers and was on my merry way.
I’ve spent my time doing my daily workloads with the B580 paired with an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and 32GB RAM with EXPO-related settings enabled. This also includes playing a lot of different games because a problem with anything not named Nvidia or ATI/AMD is that running into compatibility problems is unfortunately much higher than if I were to go with the status quo. And admittedly, I am a little concerned with future driver support if Intel sees that their dedicated GPU business has no future. Nvidia cards are overpriced and some say that their newer drivers do impact performance on their older cards, but their driver support is unparalleled—I’m of the opinion that the worst fate a component can face is lost driver support, it is the fastest path to future kernel panics and other nuisances that’ll tire out even the most adamant enthusiast. But it’s too early to tell and I hope Intel sees a viable path within the graphics space—possibly even one that takes market share from a waning AMD.
But I digress! This article will guide you through twenty or so games and applications I have run on the B580. Mind, I went into these games moreso with compatibility and user experience in mind, with only cursory glances at frame rates. There are far better articles and videos out there that stress test Intel’s latest GPU offering. But I like old games with my new ones, and I’ll be mildly frustrated if classics like ‘No One Lives Forever’ and ‘Rune Classic’ won’t run like they did with my old but gold GTX 1070. But don’t worry, I’ll look at some newer titles too like ‘Infinity Nikki’ and ‘TEKKEN 8’.
A quick specification reminder before we get into this:
- Windows 11
- 1080p @ 144Hz display with Variable Refresh Rate enabled
- AMD Ryzen 9 7900X with an integrated GPU
- AMD Switchable graphics is enabled
- Corsair 32GB DDR5 @ 6000MHz with EXPO enabled
Strinova
This is a third-person tactical shooter that recently dropped. And already, I’ve run into one problem: the game favours my integrated GPU over the B580, no matter what enforcements I place in Windows and in the game’s settings. I bring this one up because it’s not really the B580’s fault here and, of all the games I’ve run in this list, this is the only one that has been having this problem. I’ve spoken with the game’s customer service and am hoping for a resolution down the line.
Deus Ex
Ah, Deus Ex. One of my favourite immersive sims. This game holds up surprisingly well in terms of compatibility, especially considering the number of issues that plague games of its time today. I usually install kentie’s DirectX10 renderer for added renderer features and full control over the game’s graphics functionality, but on older Nvidia hardware I’ve never had issues with running the game’s built-in Direct3D support. Unfortunately, kentie’s renderer is required for the B580 as the game will launch with broken visuals otherwise. The DirectX10 renderer also features a Classic Lighting option which helps those that are looking for a native Deus Ex experience.
Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey
Oddworld’s CG cutscenes are barely functional on Intel’s B580—it almost looks like the game is delivering each frame through screen tears. Thankfully, gameplay is playable (although who’d want to miss out on the CGs?). R.E.L.I.V.E. is an absolute necessity if you want to play this classic anyway, but it’s mandatory for Intel’s latest hardware.
Serious Sam 2
Runs great! Serious Sam 2 in all its glory. Helps that this game has seen continuous updates since its release a little over two decades ago.
Binary Domain
Runs great! No comment to make besides very annoying control set ups.
Infinity Nikki
Infinity Nikki is Infold Games’ full 3D introduction for the whimsical Stylist Nikki. Besides being a great 3D open-world adventure and dress up game combo, Infinity Nikki is also drop-dead gorgeous, featuring beautiful 3D models and dense world scenery and lighting. The B580 takes this game on like a champ, running it at full Ultra settings between 40-60 frames per second with little issue. But… That comes at a cost: the game seems to always run its internal resolution at a much lower percentage than your actual display output. The developer’s likely intended it this way for performance reasons and hoped that you’d use the only DLSS option included to help clean up the image. Sadly, this is an Intel card, and Infinity Nikki has no support for the company’s equivalent XeSS.
But the good news is that with a bit of tweaking, we can force the game to run at 100% internal resolution—you can find the reddit article here on how to do that. Note that this will choke the card particularly in dense zones such as Stoneville, but all I care about is how that dress on Nikki looks!
The First Descendant
Nexon’s latest third-person looter shooter. Honestly, no matter the upscaling tech or graphical preset used, this game never looks “clear”. Like there are filters upon filters smearing the screen, it always looks so busy. For what it’s worth, the B580 can run this game with a mix of high and ultra settings between 40-50 frames per second with the game’s built in Intel XeSS tech. You can even turn on ray tracing and set it to ultra if you don’t mind a mini-heater and 30 frames per second gameplay!
Mirror’s Edge
Another great runner! Points if you got that one. Nvidia’s PhysX option will murder performance on any non-Nvidia card, so turn that off. And also thank them for contributing awful software that ruins the visuals of games in addition to causing headaches for users on competing hardware.
Pair this game with Mirror’s Edge Tweaks for additional VFX options but is otherwise unnecessary.
MMOs (Official and Fan-run)
Toontown Rewritten, Star Wars Galaxies Legends, Pirates Online, Wizard101
MMOs are fun! Here are some thoughts on a few classics:
- Toontown Rewritten – Run perfect! This developer team in particular has taken great care in optimising Disney’s old code and building a better foundation for the game that makes it run across multiple operating systems and even with controller support.
- Star Wars Galaxies: Legends – Playable. There are visual issues related to lighting that I couldn’t replicate on my GTX 1070 and RTX 3060.
- The Legend of Pirates Online – Runs perfect! Fan-run MMO of the now defunct Pirates of the Carribean Online game. In my case, the game now runs on this system as I’ve previously been unable to launch this game with my GTX 1070 no matter the PC build.
- Wizard101 – Runs perfect! No comments otherwise. It is getting a console port!
No One Lives Forever
A beloved classic that is outright broken on the B580, even with the Modernizer patch. Requires dgVoodoo to display visuals in any capacity.
The Typing of the Dead
This one works great on modern hardware and needs no patches. Chapter 5’s boss exhibits flickering with its unique shadow, but this issue occurs even on Nvidia hardware.
Rune Classic
Unplayable. Prepare to be flashbanged with broken visuals if launch the game (I won’t even go through the hassle of recording what happens). Kentie’s DirectX10 renderer is unfortunately not compatible with Rune Classic, making this game more or less unplayable on Intel graphics.
TEKKEN 8
TEKKEN 8 works great! Except for one bizarre issue: Clive’s throw will drop the framerate down to 50 no matter what graphics settings or stage I’ve set. 60 frames per second is mission critical for a fighter and I’m not even sure why this particular animation causes the aforementioned frame drops. Til this issue is fixed, I’ll play on my laptop and Series X.
Rayman 2
Works out-of-box, but exhibits clunky application behaviour not uncommon with games of its time. Using Ray2Fix more or less fixes all those problems.
Doom 3 (Not BFG)
Because BFG stinks.
Works great out-of-box but will only run in 4:3 resolutions. Best paired with dhewm3 for added visual functionality, widescreen support, and more importantly—ensure that the game’s stencil shadows and lighting remain untouched. For some reason, screenshots will not render on this GPU, forcing me to load the game through Steam to take screens.
Zenless Zone Zero
Works great! HoyoVerse’s latest 3D action brawler with light dungeon role-playing game elements. You’ll have no issues running this one.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
HDR breaks the game. Apparently has been an ongoing issue for years now. This one hurts the most.
Well, that stinks. Unfortunately, a number of classic titles will not run properly (or at all) on the B580. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised—I fully expected some games to outright not function, but these issues are a real stinger for compatibility and for those of us that like to play older titles. From what I can tell, Intel’s graphics team are on the ball with driver updates but considering how some of the issues have impacted Intel graphics for years, I’m not sure if any of these issues will ever be resolved (or at least, resolved within the decade). Nvidia and AMD have the advantage of backwards compatibility that quite literally goes back decades, and I don’t know if Intel is even interested in catching up.
Now don’t get me wrong, as a modern display adapter, the B580 holds up very well. Modern games run great on it and for the price, the hardware isn’t shabby at all—it’s a perfect unit for video encoding and Plex needs, for example and I wholeheartedly recommend this card to those folks. But this is a gaming site and the old is also counted with the new. And as I’m not currently planning any Oblivion runs (nor Rune Classic), the B580 will continue to serve my needs up until I either need to jam the 1070 back in for compatibility’s sake. My hope is that Intel will prove me wrong and work to patch these older titles into a working state on their hardware, because as it stands, I can’t recommend the Intel Arc cards to retro gamers. Now if you’re willing to put the time (and as you should with some of these games) you can get them to run on Intel’s latest kits, but as for me, I’ll be poking, prodding, and keeping an eye on Intel to see how they’ll go about fixing these old games. ∎
