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Intel Arc B580 workstation test – Battlemage benchmarks with real applications and full versions

23. December 2024 05:30

The Intel Arc B580 12GB is not a workstation graphics card, I know, but I’ve decided not to chase after the 1001st supplement to the 1000 gaming benchmarks and YouTube videos that have already been published, because the added value is limited. For me, the readers and also Intel’s driver team, who should add a few things to their specifications today. And so that Battlemage doesn’t have to vegetate alone among all the professional cards, I’ve simply added two more consumer cards to the supposed cat’s table: the NVIDIA GeForce RX 4060 and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 GB. Because one thing is clear: you can’t keep a sector alive in the long term with gaming cards alone.

So welcome to the Triell and I can spoil it in advance: it will be quite interesting. Unlike the graphics card, I’m not a machine and in the end I’m glad that the card found its way here after all. And today I’m just going to do something that hardly anyone else does: a Let’s Play, as it screams out of the box? No, not at all, today it’s Let’s Work!

Preview of part 2

In the upcoming part 2 after Christmas, I will publish detailed laboratory analyses in a detailed follow-up on Friday. In addition to the teardown and a detailed board analysis, where I will also discuss parallels and differences to NVIDIA and AMD, there will be an analysis of the thermal paste used (attention: Asus déjà vu) and pads, a material analysis, as well as very detailed measurements of the power consumption including load peaks, as well as a high-resolution thermography and the measurement from the acoustics laboratory. I won’t be publishing any extra gaming reviews, because unfortunately the card arrived too late for that and there are already enough informative reviews online. But I will of course test the card in the upcoming graphics card tests if it is suitable in terms of performance.

Intel Arc B580 12 GB vs. AMD Radeon RX 7600 8GB and GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB

Yes, benchmarking consumer cards with workstation applications (most of which are full versions of well-known software suites) and professional workloads is somewhat decadent, but nonetheless highly interesting, as the transitions are now fluid. AMD has the drivers open like a barn door and very rarely locks out the consumer cards, NVIDIA still has at least one brake active for some special applications, especially with OpenGL, and Intel? Well, some things ran unexpectedly solid and fast, but other things were quite slow and some things didn’t work at all. Despite the 4 GB more memory. I don’t want to spoil too much, but Intel still has a lot of work to do if they really don’t want to sell the cards only for gamers in the lower mid-range segment. The approaches are really not bad in places, but many things fail in the details because the optimization is simply (still) missing.

The workstation opponents

Most of the NVIDIA cards are in the archive, either as a permanent loan or as a personal purchase. The Ada and Ampere lineup is now almost complete, thanks to NVIDIA and PNY. Reason enough, therefore, not to hide the parts forever either in workstations or the archive, but also to actively use them in such articles.

Symbol image with some of the tested workstation cards from NVIDIA

The AMD cards are actually still quite fresh and I even have them all here in the archive. With these cards, AMD definitely has a chance of scoring well in some areas. Of course, there is still a certain gap in NVIDIA’s flagship disciplines, but this has generally become smaller. And if the price is right (and AMD also likes to compare the cards according to price), then the professional user can certainly find bargains. If they have the confidence to make the move to AMD. Or perhaps even to Intel?

Thanks to AMD’s sampling, these cards are permanently in my inventory and can therefore also be permanently retested.

Test software and workstation

The software package includes 4 large software suites from PTC Inc, Dassault Systèmes, Autodesk and Adobe and of course the usual standard software such as Blender. I use professional or standardized workloads and do not use synthetic benchmarks. The only exception here is SPECviewperf 2020, which I deliberately included because it enables two things. Firstly, in direct comparison to the full versions, you can see where the graphics card manufacturers may ~~have~~ optimized the drivers in order to look particularly good. And secondly, anyone can benchmark this themselves in order to make a direct comparison. And the hurdles for consumer cards are also significantly lower there.

Even if NVIDIA would have liked to see it differently, today it’s only partly about AI and computers (but also). It was important to me that there are programs in the test that run on all architectures and thus also enable a direct comparison. We will also see that some tasks do not require an ultra-expensive high-end card and that even Battlemage is sufficient. These findings are also important when it comes to making an investment decision. Practicality is the new magic word.

For the last time, a PC with an Intel Core i9-13900K on an MSI Z790 Godlike (I know, it’s a gaming board) and 64 GB DDR5 PC6000 CL30 serves as a workstation, whereby I deliberately only run the memory as DDR5 5200. The performance difference to DDR5 6000 is marginal in this application area, especially since I had a case where the system froze shortly before the end after a longer Creo run with 5 iterations with DDR5 6000. Incidentally, this is also the reason why I only allow the Core i9-13900K a PL1 of 125 watts. It’s not a gaming PC and, as always, stability comes first. Time is pure money and a potential loss of data is inexcusable. Everything is cooled with a simple 360 Silent-Loop 2 AiO from be quiet! and I’ve put the workstation in a Fractal Meshify XL, just like the VGA test station.

I deliberately opted for a professional solution for the monitor. The almost frameless BenQ PD322020U is large enough with its 31.5 inch diagonal and 3840 x 2160 pixels, has an excellent AHVA panel from AU Optronics and covers the required color spaces almost completely with 10 bit color depth (1.07 billion colors). The ergonomics are almost perfect and you can turn it (including the pivot function) however you like – one setting always fits. Not brand new, but tried and tested.

Test system (Workstation 2023/2024)
CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K (Intel Standard Profile)
RAM	64 (2x 32) GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 PC6000 CL30 @ DDR5 5200
Mainboard	MSI MEG Z790 Godlike
Cooler	Be Quiet! Silent Loop 2, 360 mm
PSU	Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 3 1600 Watt
SSD	2x 2 GB Netac NI7000-t NVMe
Case	Fractal Meshify XL
Monitor	BenQ PD322020U
OS	Windows 11 Professional (24H2, all updates)
Drivers	Latest WHQL/Studio

Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition, 12GB GDDR6, HDMI, DP, 2x DP (31P06HB0BA)

	Lager Lieferant: vorrätig, 3-5 Werktage	324,91 €*Stand: 22.01.25 21:40
	Abhol-/Versandbereit in 1-3 Werktagen	340,12 €*Stand: 22.01.25 21:34
	Ab Zentrallager sofort lieferbar	340,14 €*Stand: 22.01.25 21:13