With its latest graphics cards, Intel scores an unexpected victory

The Battlemage generation cards, the B580 and B570, are receiving praise from the press. Sales are finally taking off for Intel GPUs.

This time, is it the right one? If Intel’s first attempt to enter the graphics card market at the start of the 2000s did not meet with the slightest success, its new generation of Arc GPUs, called Battlemage and launched last week, seem to win all the competition. votes.

Exceptional demand for new Intel graphics cards

The press is unanimous: Intel’s B570 and B580 graphics cards are excellent. Offered at very reasonable prices ($250 for the most expensive), they impress in a very competitive market, in which it is not easy to find affordable references. In the United States, where this new generation is already available, the cards are already out of stock at almost all retailers, reports The Verge.

“Demand for Arc B580 cards is high and many resellers have already sold out of their initial stockenthuses Mark Anthony Ramirez, spokesperson for Intel, to the American media. We plan to restock B580 weekly and work with our partners to ensure constant availability. »

It must be said that this new reference has the effect of a breath of fresh air on entry-level and mid-range graphics cards. Its main competitors, the RTX 4060 and AMD RX 7600, were launched at a much higher price and were received lukewarmly by the specialist press.

Intel’s very complicated year

A small victory in the form of light at the end of the tunnel for a shaken American giant in 2024. Surpassed by AMD in great shape on the processor market, Intel notably suffered the blow of a 13^e and a 14^e generation of defective CPUs, because of which he got bogged down in delicate communication with his customers. The brand finally changed its mind and agreed to launch a large-scale recall campaign for the models affected by the problem, which caused significant costs.

But that is only the tree that hides the forest. Intel suffered an unprecedented financial loss of $16.6 billion this year. Lights that flash red and have led to major internal restructuring, as well as a massive layoff plan: 15,000 people, or 15% of Intel’s workforce, were let go in 2024.

Even if Nvidia plans to unveil its new generation of GPUs on January 7 during CES in Las Vegas, it is very unlikely that the price of them will compete with the B580. A card which, definitely, has everything to become a new benchmark in terms of value for money.