Recently, a European store accidentally began selling the Intel Arc B570 graphics card about a month before its official release. However, this early sale caused a problem for the buyers, as the necessary drivers for the GPU were not yet available. Without drivers, the graphics card could not be used, preventing any early performance tests or leaks.
Intel, like other tech companies such as AMD and NVIDIA, releases specific drivers for their products. These drivers usually arrive shortly before the product launches. For the Intel Arc B570, these drivers are expected to be available just 1 or 2 weeks before the official release, with review media getting early access under strict non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). This helps the company control when reviews are published and ensures that drivers are ready to fully support the product at launch.
Creative Solution: Forcing Driver Installation
Despite the lack of official drivers, some tech-savvy users, like one known as “Cross-Flow,” managed to find a workaround. By forcing the installation of drivers for the Intel Arc B580, an older version of the GPU, they were able to get the Arc B570 working. Although the installation process included errors, they pushed through, using the Device Manager to complete it. They even tried installing all the executable files in the driver folder, and to their surprise, it worked.
While the B570 was detected incorrectly as the B580, the system could at least recognise the 10GB of GDDR6 memory and 15 Xe2 cores on the B570, although the B580 has 12GB of memory and 18 Xe2 cores. Despite the misidentification, the GPU worked in games, with AMD FreeSync support and no power consumption issues during idle mode with multiple monitors connected.
Unfortunately, the user did not provide any performance benchmarks. They only mentioned that the system was running Windows 10 and that AMD FreeSync worked in both full screen and windowed modes. The user also noted that the system used PCI-Express 3.0 and ran Ubuntu LTS. With more users receiving the GPU, we may see the first benchmarks soon, but until then, no official reviews will be available due to NDAs.
Why Was the Intel Arc B570 Released Early?
One key question that remains is why Intel hasn’t officially released the Intel Arc B570 yet. The review units of the GPU have not even arrived in stores, so it seems likely that the company is still working on polishing the software and drivers. Intel may want an extra month to perfect the drivers before launching the Intel Arc B570, especially since it is targeting the more budget-friendly segment of the GPU market, where mid-range and low-end GPUs have the highest sales.
Intel Arc B570 Specifications
The Intel Arc B570 comes with a powerful 18 Xe2 Core chip, translating to 144 Compute Units or 144 XMX Engines for Ray Tracing. This GPU operates at a frequency of 2.50 GHz, which is a notable improvement over the 2.40 GHz frequency of the previous generation Intel Arc A770. The B570’s performance is expected to continue to improve with the Xe2 architecture, and the B770 might even reach 3.00 GHz.
The B570 also features 10GB of GDDR6 VRAM running at 19Gbps, offering a high memory bandwidth of up to 380GB/s through a 160-bit interface. It has a low power consumption of just 150W and is powered by a standard 8-pin PCIe connector. The GPU uses a PCI-Express 4.0 x8 interface and includes four video outputs: three DisplayPort 2.1 with DSC and one HDMI 2.1.
While it remains unclear exactly when Intel will officially release the Arc B570, the early sale of the card and the efforts of users to get it working have shed light on the upcoming GPU. The drivers are still being fine-tuned, but once released, we can expect more detailed benchmarks and performance comparisons. Until then, we will have to wait for the official review and driver release.
