Arc B580 power consumption: Battlemage GPU seemingly improves upon Arc A580 but RTX 4060 still reigns supreme

After much anticipation, Intel Arc B580 reviews are finally out and the consensus seems to be that the debut Battlemage desktop card is a great budget release. The GPU, on average, outperforms the RTX 4060 and the RX 7600 by a comfortable margin. Additionally, Intel has also made gains in ray tracing performance, as the Arc B580 is reportedly faster than the RTX 4060 at 1080p with the margin increasing to an impressive 28% at 1440p (via TechPowerUp).

So, what about the Arc B580’s power consumption? Has Intel also managed to make serious gains here?

The quick answer: Intel has managed to make progress over the last-gen Arc Alchemist cards, as the Arc B580 seems to consume less power than the Arc A580. But, the Battlemage GPU can’t touch the RTX 4060. 

According to Digital Foundry, the Arc B580 performs much better than the RTX 4060 in A Plague Tale Requiem but requires substantially more power. The numbers put the RTX 4060 as the most frugal card with a power draw ranging between 120 to 130 W. The Arc B580, on the other hand, draws the most power in the test group with 160 to 170+ W.

Similarly, the Arc B580 outperforms the RTX 4060 in Cyberpunk 2077 (non-RT) but at the cost of power consumption. Where the RTX 4060 consumes only 120-130 W, the Arc B580 ranges from 150 to 170 W. The power consumption of the Arc B580 Battlemage GPU is also more than the RTX 4060 in Alan Wake 2 but without any noticeable performance gains.

Linus Tech Tips’ analysis of the Arc B580 also put forth similar findings. With a Total Board Power (TBP) of 190 W compared to the RTX 4060's 116 W, it is not a surprise that the Arc B580 appears to consume around 186 W in F1 23 vs the RTX 4060’s 129 W. This is a delta of a massive 44%.

That said, Intel has improved upon the power consumption of the Arc A580. LTT shows that, in F1 23, the Arc A580 consumes 206 W, 11% more than the Arc B580.

In short, where the Arc B580 Battlemage GPU is arguably an excellent release by Intel with good performance and impressive RT, Intel still has work to do when it comes to matching the power consumption of Nvidia’s offerings. So, if you don’t care about power consumption and just want a budget GPU with more than 8 GB of RAM, the Arc B580 is worth looking into.

Buy the Nvidia RTX 4060 | Radeon RX 7600 | Arc A580 on Amazon