Acer is once again linking arms with Intel for their new Nitro Arc B-Series graphics cards. Two cards have been announced so far: the Nitro Intel Arc B570 OC 10 GB and Nitro Intel Arc B580 OC 12 GB. The target audience for these cards isn't just PC tinkerers looking for a mid-range upgrade, but also content creators who need their resource-hungry video editing suite to quickly chew through rendering their latest round of reels.
According to a news post from Acer, the cards in question will feature, "Xe2 architecture with up to 20 cores, clock speeds of up to 2,740 MHz, plus Acer’s advanced FrostBlade thermal system for optimal cooling." While these cards are said to offer high framerates at a still very respectable 1440p, Acer also claims "stunning 8K visuals." Which, ah…okay, sure, gaming at 8K is probably possible, but maybe not the most pleasant experience for anything more demanding than another cheeky run of Balatro.
Oh, and as is so en vogue these days, Acer is also keen to highlight that these GPUs are all in on AI. For instance, both cards are "equipped with specialized AI engines to execute cutting-edge AI workloads," specifically the "XMX AI engines in each Xe-core."
Acer was one of a handful of business partners Intel worked with to produce their first generation of Arc GPUs, so teaming up again was to be expected. It's no surprise either that, while waxing lyrical about how deftly these new cards will integrate AI into a content creation workflow, Acer shouts out Intel's AI Playground app.
Touted as a one-stop shop for "image creation, editing, and AI-powered answers at the fingertips of anyone with an Intel Arc GPU," I'm sure Playground will be a boon to any creator who doesn't mind that their content looks much like everyone else's. Alright, I'm done—let me reel my neck back into its AI-sceptical hovel.
Yesterday, Jeremy covered Intel's own take on these same cards, breaking down their tech specs and offering the following takeaway: to paraphrase, though the architecture for Intel's own Arc B580 and its B570 cards is sound, performance-wise they're still only glancing off Nvidia's RTX 4060. That said, Intel's cards are also cheaper, with the B580 costing a not insignificant $50 less than the RTX 4060.
That said, these cards from Intel are limited edition, so you're much more likely to see Acer's renditions of these GPUs on shelves anyway.
In many respects, it's not been Intel's year. The Arrow Lake launch was off target, not quite making the splash the company had hoped, and more recently CEO Pat Gelsinger stepped down in favour of retirement. To recap, Gelsinger first joined Intel in 1979 and stayed with the company for decades before departing in 2009. He only returned to Intel to take up the hefty mantle of CEO back in early 2021 but, if TechCrunch's report about Gelsinger's severance package is to be believed, it was definitely a worthwhile stretch.
Intel's Arc graphics cards have made their first appearance in the Steam hardware survey just as I'm getting genuinely excited about the new Battlemage B580 card
If the rumour that AMD's RDNA 4 GPU is 45% faster in ray tracing than a 7900 XTX and on par with an RTX 4080 Super in raster is true I'm buying six of 'em
