Finance available from Best Intel Arc B580 Design
by PaulI wanted to upgrade from my RTX3060 and also wanted something to fit into the aesthetics of my build (white Lian Li O11 Dynamic Mini case with Asrock Z690 Steel Legend Motherboard) - this ticks both of those boxes. Firstly, the card is very aesthetically pleasing - definitely the best design out there from the currently available cards. It matches my build perfectly and the build quality is what you'd expect from Asrock. The card is slightly longer than the twin fan RTX3060 it replaced - so I was also able to use the GPU support bracket that came with my motherboard. The card itself has a couple of cool/unique features. It has a switch that allows the LED to be turned off (if that's not your thing) and it also has an ARGB connector (header) accessible on the top as well - which would allow you to hook up another component to this header and control it through the software. On the subject of software - as I already had an Asrock motherboard I was already using RGB Polychrome - it's not the best software in the world - but it gets the job done. With regards to performance - there has been many negative comments about this card - especially in regards to driver overheads when compared with older CPU's etc- I won't get into this particular debate here - but I will say that I have it paired with an Intel 12600K and generally play at 1440p and it has been nothing but flawless.. no crashes or unexpected behaviour and there has been a marked improvement over the performance of my RTX3060 in the games I benchmarked back to back. Is it a perfect card?.. no - but then what is a perfect card? - for the price point it's punching well above anything else in that category - the drivers continue to evolve and get better and the future is exciting as more and more games are being XeSS 2 compatible (currently only F1 2024 and Marvel Rivals have this as an option) - but there are many more in the pipeline - overall, I'm very happy with my choice and if you can get this card for anywhere near MSRP - then jump at it! :)
