Intel has finally recognized the performance issues plaguing their Arc GPUs, particularly when used with older CPUs, and has kicked off an investigation to address and resolve these problems.
Intel’s Steps to Address Arc GPU Performance Concerns with Older CPUs
When the Intel Arc B580 and B570 GPUs first hit the market, they seemed promising. They boasted more VRAM than counterparts from other brands. However, despite their potential, they didn’t make a significant splash on the performance charts. A significant factor contributing to this was the suboptimal optimization of these GPUs.
The issue wasn’t just about Intel’s GPU drivers. Instead, it was a broader problem that left the Arc Battlemage GPUs lagging behind their rivals. Early on, Hardware Unboxed was among those who highlighted the underwhelming performance of the Arc B580 when it was coupled with older processors, like those from the Ryzen 2000 series and Intel’s 9th gen Core lineup.
For a long time, Intel seemed silent on the matter. Yet, now they’ve finally stepped up and provided a response on their forums. Here’s what Intel had to say:
"Thank you for your patience. We are aware of reports of performance sensitivity in some games when paired with older generation processors. We have increased our platform coverage to include more configurations in our validation process, and we are continuing to investigate optimizations."
From this, it’s apparent that Intel was aware of the issues but hadn’t prioritized optimization efforts. They’re now promising to work on expanding these optimizations to cover more configurations. However, they haven’t offered a specific timeline for when these updates might be expected.
Currently, it’s the software side that needs an overhaul since Intel’s hardware matches up to its last-gen competitors in recent game releases. There hasn’t been any noticeable performance drop when using the Arc B580 or B570 with the newest Intel and AMD CPUs, which made the poorer performance with Intel’s own older CPUs all the more puzzling.
With the anticipated updates, it’s hoped that Intel can compete better against AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. Nevertheless, this doesn’t automatically mean Intel will suddenly start making significant waves in the GPU market. The Arc Battlemage GPUs remain largely inaccessible due to scarce availability, which has already pushed Intel out of the running in the budget GPU segment.
Source: Intel
