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A bit of a double-whammy this week from Intel. Not only did they announce that CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired, but they've also now properly revealed their new Arc B-Series GPUs.

News of Gelsinger's retirement was shared by Intel on December 2nd. Intel has named two senior staffers, David Zinsner and Michelle (MJ) Johnston Holthaus, as interim co-chief executive officers while they search for a new permanent CEO.

Gelsinger said, “Leading Intel has been the honor of my lifetime – this group of people is among the best and the brightest in the business, and I’m honored to call each and every one a colleague. Today is, of course, bittersweet as this company has been my life for the bulk of my working career. I can look back with pride at all that we have accomplished together. It has been a challenging year for all of us as we have made tough but necessary decisions to position Intel for the current market dynamics. I am forever grateful for the many colleagues around the world who I have worked with as part of the Intel family.”

As for the new Intel Arc B-Series graphics cards (code-named Battlemage), only two models have been currently announced with the Arc B580 and B570 GPUs. The B580 will get a Limited Edition model and various partner releases from the likes of Acer, ASRock and others starting December 13 from $249. While the B570 will arrive January 16th starting $219.

Intel said "Compared with the previous generation, the Intel Arc B-Series GPUs offer 70% better performance per Xe-core and 50% more performance per watt. The B580 GPU, when compared to the Intel Arc A750 GPU, is on average 24% faster at 1440p with some games up to 78% faster. When compared to the competition, the Intel Arc B580 GPU offers up to 32% better performance-per-dollar".

This comes along with an announcement of XeSS 2 which now includes three different bits of tech including XeSS Super Resolution, AI-powered XeSS Frame Generation and Xe Low Latency. So they're following in the footsteps of AMD and NVIDIA here.

Going by their press slides games supporting XeSS 2 will including Assassin's Creed Shadows, Harry Potter Quidditch Champions, Robocop Rogue City, Like a Dragon Pirate Yakuza, Dying Light 2, F1 24, Ascendant, Marvel Rivals, Killing Floor 3 and Citadels.

See their explainer announcement video below:

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Be sure to leave a comment on your thoughts. Will you be buying either of the new GPUs?

Hopefully they will work well on Linux. It's likely you'll need a very up to date kernel and Mesa version for them.

I'm still not getting Intel press releases, so have reached out again today to see why.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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11 comments
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pilk about 14 hours ago
A $250 GPU with that kinda stuff is compelling. If it's a meaningful upgrade from my 2080, I might make a bad financial decision.


Last edited by pilk on 3 December 2024 at 8:40 pm UTC
Leahi84 about 12 hours ago
As much as I loath the idea of supporting massive late-stage capitalist corporations I have to admit that I am rooting for Intel to be successful so that there will be more legitimate choices besides a massive monopoly and a lazy AMD. They could really clean up on the entry level - mid range market if this goes well and they continue to stick with it. They will likely have it all to themselves as well, as NVIDIA has shown no interest in getting the money of people who can't afford to spend $600+ dollars on a graphics card.
TimeFreeze about 12 hours ago
Depending on the reviews, how it performs on Linux and how much of an improvement it is to the RX6600 i might go for a Intel card. But i guess only time will tell.
Avehicle7887 about 12 hours ago
Been a while since I followed intel gpu's, are the Arc series still a mess on Linux?

It always seemed to me that the actual hardware is not half bad but the drivers are a different story.

Still loving my RX 6800, it continues to serve me well. Next upgrade will most likely be the new AMD card.
dpanter about 12 hours ago
Dead product line, has no USP or reason to exist. The losses Intel have taken from the ARC disaster are unimaginable.
These new cards can barely compete with previous generation Nvidia/AMD cards, have nothing on current gen and are dead in the water against the upcoming releases from both competitors in Q1 2025. RIP.
Jarmer about 11 hours ago
Quoting: Avehicle7887Been a while since I followed intel gpu's, are the Arc series still a mess on Linux?

It always seemed to me that the actual hardware is not half bad but the drivers are a different story.

Still loving my RX 6800, it continues to serve me well. Next upgrade will most likely be the new AMD card.

This is me as well. I will wait for some reviews to come out on the various sites comparing these new cards to the amd 6xxx and 7xxx lines. I'm also currently on a 6800xt and waiting for the 8xxx series to come out before building an entirely new system. Looking forward to the release!

Speaking of these cards, I also do really hope they can enjoy some form of success so competition is just a little better for us consumers. AMD not competing against nvidia at the top end is just so so so bad.
chickenb00 about 11 hours ago
Like many others here I echo the sentiment that I hope Intel finds success and we have a legit third competitor to even the playing field but, like other posters, it's unlikely that I will be the guinea pig and buy an Arc card and tolerate the iffy drive support I've heard issues about. Let alone Linux driver support, I have no clue how good that is. So what we want to see is good reviews, fantastic value, and then optimistic community comments showing the driver support is great and that issues are nil. Then I will strongly consider buying.

TechPowerUp ran a DLSS/FSR/XESS comparison in Stalker 2 and found that XESS outperforms FSR3 visually, so they're already ahead of the game in that one title anyway.
WMan22 about 4 hours ago
I would be rooting for them if they have user space open source drivers like AMD. Like we talk of competition but with 2 major players on the field doing that people would be like "well why is Nvidia the only one to not do that?"
CyborgZeta 1 hour ago
I'm open to buying the B580 depending on specs and driver compatibility.

My Intel Arc A770 that I've been using for over a year generally works very well. But there is the occasional Steam game that won't launch, or just crashes. I had to play P3: Reload in its entirety on my Steam Deck because it would crash on my A770 after the opening video.

If the B580 allows to play P3R on my desktop, then I would consider it to be an improvement. Having 12GB of VRAM would be nice too, since my A770 is an 8GB model.
Phlebiac 1 hour ago
"Retired" is the PR spin; the board forced him out. It's also been said these are likely the last discrete GPUs, as Intel is looking to cut costs, and it will take a lot more investment for them to actually compete.
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