by KronisLV | 2025-06-24 22:52:09+00:00
I had both an A580 (not an A770, but at least something from that generation) and then later a B580, at one point even both in the same computer, side by side, when I wanted to use one for games and the other for encoding:

https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/what-is-ruining-dual-gpu-setups

https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/more-pc-shenanigans-my-setup-un...

https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/two-intel-arc-gpus-in-one-pc-wo...

When paired with a worse CPU like a Ryzen 5 4500, the experience won't always be good (despite no monitoring software actually showing that the CPU is a bottleneck).

When paired with a better CPU (I got a Ryzen 7 5800X to replace it, eventually with an AIO cause the temperatures were too high under full load anyways), either of them are pretty okay.

In a single GPU setup either of them run most games okay, not that many compatibility or stability issues, even in older indie titles, though I've had some like STALCRAFT: X complain about running on an integrated GPU (Intel being detected as such). Most software also works, unless you want to run LLMs locally, where Nvidia will have more of an advantage and you'd go off the beaten path. Most annoying I've had were some stability issues near the launch of each card, for example running the B580 with their Boost functionality on in their graphics software sometimes crashed in Delta Force, no longer seems to be an issue.

Temperature and power draw seem fine. Their XeSS upscaling is actually really good (I use it on top of native resolution in War Thunder as fancy AA), their frame generation feels like it has more latency than FSR but also better quality, might be subjective, but it's not even supported in that many games in the first place. Their video encoders are pretty nice, but sometimes get overloaded in intensive games instead of prioritizing the encoding over game framerate (which is stupid). Video editing software like DaVinci Resolve also seems okay.

The games that run badly are typically Unreal Engine 5 titles, such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and The Forever Winter, where they use expensive rendering techniques and to get at least 30 FPS you have to turn the graphics way down, to the point where the games still run like crap and end up looking worse than something from 5 years ago. Those were even worse on the A series cards, but with the B series ones become at least barely playable.

In a dual GPU setup, nothing works that well, neither in Windows 11, nor Windows 10, neither with the A580 + B580, nor my old RX 580 + B580: system instability, some games ignoring the Intel GPU preference being set when an AMD one is available, low framerates when a video is playing on a secondary monitor (I have 4 in total), the inability to play games on the B580 and do encoding on the A580 due to either just OBS or also the hardware not having proper support for that (e.g. can't pick which GPU to do encode on, like you can with Nvidia ones, my attempts at patching OBS to do that failed, couldn't get a video frame from one GPU to the other). I moved back to running just the B580 in my PC.

For MSRP, I'd say that the Intel Arc B580 is actually a good option, perhaps better than all A series cards. But the more expensive it gets, the more attractive alternatives from AMD and Nvidia become. Personally wouldn't get an A770 unless needed the VRAM or the price was really good.

Also I’m not sure why the A580 needed two 8-pin connectors if it never drew that much power and also why the B580 has plenty of larger 3 fan versions when I could never really get high temps when running Furmark on the 2 fan version.