Intel Investigates Performance Issues with Arc GPUs and Older Processors Combination

Intel has turned its attention to fixing the performance loss issues that have plagued its Arc GPUs, particularly when used with older CPUs. They’re now diving into an investigation to pinpoint and resolve these concerns.

### Intel Addresses Arc GPU Underperformance with Older Processors

When Intel introduced the Arc B580 and B570 GPUs, they appeared promising, offering more VRAM than their competitors. However, they didn’t quite make waves in the market due to underwhelming optimizations. The real snag wasn’t just with Intel’s GPU drivers; it stemmed from a problem that kept the Arc Battlemage GPUs lagging behind rival products. Those at Hardware Unboxed were among the first to shed light on the disappointing performance of the Arc B580, especially when coupled with older CPUs like those from the Ryzen 2000 series and Intel’s 9th-generation Core processors.

It’s taken some time, but Intel has finally acknowledged this issue. They decided to address it directly in their forums:

> “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.”

Intel’s statement suggests they were aware of the issues but had not yet devoted sufficient effort to optimize performance. The company has committed to broadening their optimizations to encompass more configurations, hinting at an eventual solution. Unfortunately, they haven’t provided a specific timeline for when these updates may arrive.

Intel’s hardware can keep up with the latest titles when partnered with newer CPUs, showing no performance dips in the Arc B580 or B570 models. The struggle with previous-gen Intel CPUs remains puzzling, but Intel seems poised to resolve it.

New driver updates might enable Intel to stand toe-to-toe with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, but that alone might not be enough to boost Intel’s presence in the GPU market. The Arc Battlemage GPUs are hard to find, and this scarcity has effectively pushed them out of the budget segment competition altogether.

(Source: Intel)