Discussion ARC Battle Mage reviews. Discussion of performance, features, and various card models.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 3, 2025

This follow up review was posted in another thread by @DavidC1

If not using or building a system with a fairly beefy PCIe 4.0 CPU (that leaves you out Cezanne) and rebar support, it isn't worth it IMO. The 12GB VRAM is nice but pay a bit more for the 7600XT or 6750XT. Or you can shop refurb and used if you are not risk-averse.

ToTTenTranz · Jan 3, 2025

DAPUNISHER said:
This follow up review was posted in another thread by @DavidC1

If not using or building a system with a fairly beefy PCIe 4.0 CPU (that leaves you out Cezanne) and rebar support, it isn't worth it IMO. The 12GB VRAM is nice but pay a bit more for the 7600XT or 6750XT. Or you can shop refurb and used if you are not risk-averse.

So.. this means it's not adequate for an eGPU box?

That's a real shame, I was thinking of upgrading my RTX 3060 12GB to the B580 eventually.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 3, 2025

ToTTenTranz said:
So.. this means it's not adequate for an eGPU box?

That's a real shame, I was thinking of upgrading my RTX 3060 12GB to the B580 eventually.

Bandwidth wise it seems like it is going to suffer worse than PCIe 3.0 unless using OCuLINK 2.0. ETA PRIME will probably have a video using it as an eGPU soon. I'll post it if/when he does. Or if another channel I follow does it.

The comparison between it and the 3060 as an eGPU would be fun.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 3, 2025

Aussie Steve adding to the overhead saga -

His conclusion is overly heavy on the doom and gloom. It isn't a disaster, and it should not ruin the B570 launch the way he asserts it will. It is still going to be a good choice for budget builds. At least until we see what AMD and Nvidia have for under $300 next gen, if anything. And especially if this negative attention gets prices back to MSRP.

I have observed since owning a couple of Alchemist cards that the rebar and CPU overhead issues were a seriously missed opportunity. Not just with low budget gamers, but also with the cottage industry that rehabs old office and workstation PCs into gaming PCs. They need throw and go cards that won't end up having the PC sent back. Until Intel can be that card, lots of missed sales they could have potentially made.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 4, 2025

Here's more testing from HUB -

The problem with the 1440 testing is should it help with the overhead, any use of upscaling will put more load right back on the CPU. The caveats continue to pile up.

Saylick · Jan 4, 2025

Man, Intel just cannot catch a break. It’s like every product they launch has an asterisk on it, whether the consumer realizes it or not.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 4, 2025

Saylick said:
Man, Intel just cannot catch a break. It’s like every product they launch has an asterisk on it, whether the consumer realizes it or not.

Intel is doing it to themselves; hence I have zero sympathy. One of the examples used to teach kids about Chesterton Fence, is taking away free snacks from employees and the potential consequences. Intel failed to grasp something school kids are taught. Vid is time stamped -

Guess push ups Pat should have watched that video

With all of the layoffs, retirement buyouts, and other terrible punitive policies enacted against employees, no one should be surprise with the results. They are precisely the results anyone that has ever run a biz with employees could have told Intel would happen. You know they disrupted the the ARC team massively for funding, workforce, and productivity. It's a damned good product when you take those things into consideration.

GaiaHunter · Jan 4, 2025

It says on the product page it requires resizable bar.
Just the other week a relative of mine was building a machine for his kid based on some old 6700k parts he already had and I pointed him to the rx7600/7600xt instead of a b580 because of no rebar.
I don't understand how the reviewers didn't catch this on the initial review.

DavidC1 · Jan 4, 2025

GaiaHunter said:
I don't understand how the reviewers didn't catch this on the initial review.

We're not talking about ReBar! Platforms as far as Sandy Bridge can support ReBar.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 5, 2025

DavidC1 said:
We're not talking about ReBar! Platforms as far as Sandy Bridge can support ReBar.

Steve got a bunch of blowback for the first video. He points out in the latest video that resizable bar was part of the PCIe 2.0 standards. As he was getting comments saying it isn't supported on the Ryzen 2600 and that's why the performance was terrible. He provided test results with it on and off to shut that speculation down.

It is a bummer they could not get some of the first gen problems corrected. I was hoping rebar would not be intrinsic to good performance. AMD suffers more than Nvidia without it, but nothing like we see with ARC. CPU overhead may not be worse than A series, just more starkly evident because of max performance potential with the 9800X3D to push it.

It is definitely causing a row. It has the r/IntelARC regulars ranting -

https://www.reddit.com/r/IntelArc/comments/1htozas/about_the_recent_surge_in_the_sub

Win2012R2 · Jan 5, 2025

"due to the human waste known as MLID followers and just overall haters to be fair this sub is becoming a cesspool of braindeads. the first post I can see is either a manchild or a 14yo writing lIkE tHiS."

DAPUNISHER · Jan 5, 2025

Win2012R2 said:
"due to the human waste known as MLID followers and just overall haters to be fair this sub is becoming a cesspool of braindeads. the first post I can see is either a manchild or a 14yo writing lIkE tHiS."

That thread is a hoot!

There was a great reply to @DavidC1 in his thread there -

Ex intel GPU guy here … the real reason is that the command buffers are too verbose. The driver needs to write a larger number of bytes to GPU memory vs Nvidia or AMD to accomplish the same thing.

Nvidia makes really powerful GPUs which can only be driven fast by the CPU if the data needed to accomplish a said rendering is minimal. They’ve optimised this over time and I suppose Intel will do so as well.

Win2012R2 · Jan 5, 2025

So -

1) HUB 3 weeks ago extensively tests B580 and publishes video - "Intel saves PC gaming?" (248k views) Gives thumbs up, smiley face.

2) HUB 2 days ago in new video - "Intel ARC big problem!" (172k views, followup video - 129k views) - sad, frowny face

3) ???

DAPUNISHER · Jan 5, 2025

Win2012R2 said:
So -

1) HUB 3 weeks ago extensively tests B580 and publishes video - "Intel saves PC gaming?" (248k views) Gives thumbs up, smiley face.

2) HUB 2 days ago in new video - "Intel ARC big problem!" (172k views, followup video - 129k views) - sad, frowny face

3) ???

I think it is primarily because ARC does not conform to industry norms. Usually you test the card with the fastest gaming CPU to eliminate any bottlenecking, as they did initially, and tell viewers you don't need a CPU nearly so powerful to get full performance. That in fact, you can pair it with a much more affordable CPU, because the card will be the bottleneck limiting performance the vast majority of the time.

HUB did do the overhead testing a few years back that revealed Nvidia was a poor choice compared to AMD for old systems, due to it. Few listened, fewer remember, and they bought Nvidia anyways. Combine it with the lack of Nvidia game optimizations for older generations, and you have AMD fine wine.

I was going to rant about Steve not including the RX 7600 in the charts, because it makes it look like he doesn't want Nvidia to get exposed too. He did mention Nvidia's issues at the end of the last vid, but downplayed its significance. He also is rushing the content out so I don't want to jump the gun. He said more is coming this week, and he'd better have AMD in those charts using a Ryzen 2600 so we can see for ourselves the 4060 is not limiting performance substantially more than AMD does.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 5, 2025

Here is an excellent example of Nvidia's own driver overhead issues. Ryzen 1700 3.8GHz 32GB CL15 3000 using a RX 6700 and RTX 3070 in Spiderman, and the much slower Radeon beats the RTX handily, especially in 1% lows -

The overhead issue is well known to ARC owners, even if many did not realize the extent. A bunch of mouthbreathers that bought Nvidia for their old i7 and Xeon prebuilts, 8th-11th gen i3 and i5 low budget, and old Zen thru Zen 2 low budget builds suddenly lighting up the boards by throwing shade at the B580 almost feels orchestrated. Of course it is much more likely another case of Hanlon's Razor.

GaiaHunter · Jan 5, 2025

DavidC1 said:
We're not talking about ReBar! Platforms as far as Sandy Bridge can support ReBar.

Just because it can, it doesn't mean it does or that it works properly.
Rebar wasn't on the radar, regardless of being part of the spec, until AMD came out with SAM for the rx6800/6900 series and zen3.

Even Intel says https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000096161/graphics.html the lowest Intel CPU they support is 10th Gen.

And I know of people modding bios of z370 to flash on z170 motherboards to get rebar.

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/ywt3t4/resizable_bar_working_on_3rd_gen_i5_with_a_bios

mikk · Jan 5, 2025

My Kabylake CPU didn't support rebar and I wouldn't call a bios hack supported which is not guaranteed it works. PCIe 3.0 is suboptimal anyways, it can cost 10% depending on the game because B580 only has 8x lanes.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 6, 2025

Iceberg runs it through some games with a 7500f. Then with a 7800X3D to look at the CPU overhead. He had the Spiderman freezing issue even with the 3D. On the A750 I did not have the issue with either a 5800X3D or 5600X3D, weird. His results with the 3D were strange regardless.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 6, 2025

I am just going to leave this one here. UK Steve never once mentions his 14900K is locked to 125W? with air cooling. I am convinced it degraded and he is using it anyways since he got it for free from Intel through a UK retailer.

Does not do a head to head comparison. Continuously throws in verbal tidbits about frame pacing and driver problems. It could just be me, but it's got pandering to copium huffers/defending his shilling for swag vibes -

DAPUNISHER · Jan 7, 2025

If the hype dies down, I will go with the B570 to test

SiliconFly · Jan 7, 2025

mikk · Jan 7, 2025

SiliconFly said:
I have/had a old i5 quad-core Kaby Lake laptop with no HT and it died recently (display controller conked out). The kaby lake lineup didn't have HT cos it was fused off due to some HT security issues. And it was one of the worst CPUs I've ever had. Very poor performance. Actually felt a bit of relief when it stopped working.

You are incorrect Kabylake had HT depending on the SKU. i5 SKUs didn't for segmentation reasons, it has nothing to do with security. Check out i7-7700k.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 9, 2025

The Maxsun cards are here, and as overpriced as the Gunnir

igor_kavinski · Jan 9, 2025

DAPUNISHER said:
If the hype dies down, I will go with the B570 to test

View attachment 114405

WHAT??? NO, please NO. Don't save $20 and lose 12GB RAM and extra perf. That lame card deserves to be priced at $175.

I even think that you could get a free B580 card direct from Intel, saying that you represent the gaming crowd at AT forums and point them to the thread you have created testing the A750. Tell them you are on their side and helping to improve their cards by testing them extensively and offer to send them bug reports. Who knows, they may even furnish you with an unreleased card under NDA.

DAPUNISHER · Jan 9, 2025

igor_kavinski said:
WHAT??? NO, please NO. Don't save $20 and lose 12GB RAM and extra perf. That lame card deserves to be priced at $175.

I even think that you could get a free B580 card direct from Intel, saying that you represent the gaming crowd at AT forums and point them to the thread you have created testing the A750. Tell them you are on their side and helping to improve their cards by testing them extensively and offer to send them bug reports. Who knows, they may even furnish you with an unreleased card under NDA.

ROFLWAFFLES That and $10 will get you Publix Ultimate sub. And it's $20 MSRP savings, none of the B580s are selling for $249 at the moment. Newegg gouged an extra $50 last time there was stock of the LE model.

I am not overly concerned with the value of the B570. I want to compare it to Alchemist myself, and support Player 3. Can it outperform the A750 in old Assassins Creed games, no longer requiring DXVK for a good experience? Does Arkham Knight launch without DXVK? Is Watch Dogs 2 going to stay above 60fps all of the time? I think Delta Force Black Hawk Down being DX8.1 means it will never work on ARC. Though I have not tried DxWrapper yet. Can it run OG Crysis? Alchemist required compromises in the best case scenario, does Gandalf? These questions and more I will explore.

Discussion ARC Battle Mage reviews. Discussion of performance, features, and various card models.

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