Intel's Arc B580 graphics card is so successful it's hard to find in stock, but AMD still dominates CPU sales

[midian182]

In a nutshell: Intel might have had a 2024 to forget, but at least Team Blue's ending the year with a success – and in the dedicated graphics card market, of all places. The Arc B580 Battlemage GPU arrived this month to universal praise, and is now sold out in most locations. It's a stark contrast to the company's CPU sales, which are struggling against AMD's chips.

Intel has had its worst 12 months in years. Beset by problems on all sides, the company hit its lowest point when CEO Pat Gelsinger was ousted by the board at the start of December.

Intel looked to be on the ropes, but it finally made a right move in the Arc B580 that arrived last week. We called the $250 card the Best Value GPU in our review, highlighting how it outperforms both the GeForce RTX 4060 and Radeon RX 7600 while costing less. You also get more VRAM: 12GB instead of a measly 8GB.

TechSpot feature: Intel Arc B580 Review: Best Value GPU

Reviewers such as Linus Sebastian and Gamers Nexus agree that the Arc B580 is a great card. The GPU is now so in-demand that it's out of stock at many retailers. The only models Newegg has available right now are the Gunnir variants from China that range from $379 to $429. It's sold out on Amazon, too.

Our own Steve Walton doesn't believe that this is a paper launch. He said on Hardware Unboxed that the manufacturers, retailers, and distributors he spoke to confirmed the initial supply was quite substantial. They were "blown away" by demand for the Arc B580 – even the pre-orders were exceptionally high.

Intel told The Verge that demand for the Arc B580 was high and many retailers have sold through their initial inventory. The spokesperson added that the company expects weekly inventory replenishments.

In September, it was reported that Intel had lost all of its dedicated GPU share, losing the four percent share it briefly achieved following the release of the Arc Alchemist series in 2022.

Intel might have a hit in the GPU market right now, but it's still being crushed by AMD when it comes to CPU sales. Every one of the processors in Amazon's top ten best-selling CPU chart is from Team Red (above), and the latest Steam survey shows AMD chips have reached their largest-ever user share, further eroding Intel's lead. Moreover, almost 90% of the motherboards sold by German retailer Mindfactory during the Black Friday sales were AMD boards.

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Intel's Arc B580 graphics card is so successful it's hard to find in stock, but AMD still dominates CPU sales

 

[OortCloud]

Reasonably performant GPU for a reasonable price sells well - who knew!

It's almost like nVidia have strangled the market for years with really poor products at massively inflated prices and AMD have happily tagged along for the ride...

 

[Chaikr]

According to MLID, Intel is losing about 20 dollars for every B580 gpu it sells. Therfore this is a paper lounch with nonexistent inventory and it will allways be out of stock... Intel can't afford subsedizing the market in large quantities to get a real share in the gpu business

 

[R00sT3R]

According to MLID

...that boy is full of it. Nothing but a Youtube Rumour mill grifter

 

[WhiteLeaff]

All it really means is that stock is extremely limited...
The stock ratio between AMD and Nvidia is 1:5
Intel to Nvidia is something like 1:100

 

[HardwareHunt365]

Thank you, Intel, for providing such a valuable GPU in this day and age. It's unfortunate that stock isn't as abundant as AMD/Nvidia, and I have yet to see an Intel GPU being sold in person.

 

[Loadedaxe]

According to MLID, Intel is losing about 20 dollars for every B580 gpu it sells. Therfore this is a paper lounch with nonexistent inventory and it will allways be out of stock... Intel can't afford subsedizing the market in large quantities to get a real share in the gpu business

Take what he says with a grain of salt, he has been wrong so many times.

 

[Felusy]

Succesful or just had very low availability on launch? We don't really know.

All we know is that Nvidia owns every GPU market, they care about, low-end is up for grabs. Little to no money to be made here.

This is why Nvidia don't care at all abot low-end. AMD and Intel are forced to care, to stay relevant.

I can't wait to see B780 tho.
And I hope Radeon 8000 will be a success, or AMD might as well leave mid-end too.

 

[jpvalverde85]

According to MLID, Intel is losing about 20 dollars for every B580 gpu it sells. Therfore this is a paper lounch with nonexistent inventory and it will allways be out of stock... Intel can't afford subsedizing the market in large quantities to get a real share in the gpu business

Doing myself the math with the numbers I can put together without the scales of a mass selling product, I dont think Intel is losing money, and if demand is strong like it seems, they'll get even better revenue from it, but above anything, they are putting a strong foot in the door of the GPU players, A series was decent but flawed, B series is a step in the right direction, better everywhere, less power, cheaper, new features, works, and puts light to the low end mainstream market.

 

[noblody]

The BMG-G21 has 271 mm² in the same ballpark as the 294 mm² AD104-400-A1 used in the nvidia 4070Ti that nvidia sells for 3x the price. So either nvidia has insanely high margins (which they do) or intel is losing money (which, by comparison, is not farfetched). Nvidia laso has less ram and higher volumes to cover for the fixed costs: R&D, chip design, fixed costs at the fab. So maybe intel does not loose much on the BOM, but once you factor in R&D it is probably a big red number on each card.

 

[Cracken]

Afaik, the B580 is a low volume product as it's not profitable for intel. The chip is pretty large compared to what it's competing agianst, meaning it cost more to produce. Couple the high production cost with a relative low selling price = don't make to many of these.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The BMG-G21 has 271 mm² in the same ballpark as the 294 mm² AD104-400-A1 used in the nvidia 4070Ti that nvidia sells for 3x the price. So either nvidia has insanely high margins (which they do) or intel is losing money (which, by comparison, is not farfetched). Nvidia laso has less ram and higher volumes to cover for the fixed costs: R&D, chip design, fixed costs at the fab. So maybe intel does not loose much on the BOM, but once you factor in R&D it is probably a big red number on each card.

Plus look at the competition. It sells for less then AMDs 7600, and AMD has razor thin margins. Intels chip is made on the same process node, uses more memory chips, and is cheaper.

If they have margin, where TF is it coming from?

 

[SRB]

Well, it will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Pat wasn't necessarily wrong in what he was doing, its just that the finance guys that sit on the board have no patience. I was looking for a half height GPU for a HTPC. The A380 had all of the video decode/encode features I wanted for a very reasonable price. AMD doesn't have any, and the RTX 4060 is stupid expensive.

The have a toe hold in the market, but do they have the stomach to stay in the fight until they breakeven?
I'm not so sure the current people in charge are that smart.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Great, now AMD/Nvidia just move the price of their 6 series cards down by $30-50 and wipe out Intel overnight.

AMD has been dealing with this "price to performance" angle for years against NV and every time they compete on price NV just lowers their price for 6 or 7 series cards a smidge and wipes out any marketshare gains AMD might have made.

It's why AMD pricing has become a meme at this point: They launch high to capture the whales that will buy AMD no matter what then drop prices in 6 months to what the cards should have launched at. Might as well gets some margin if you can't get marketshare.

Intel 'bout to learn the hard way what being the third choice in a brutal market looks like.

 

[Dimitrios]

It appears I was wrong. I said many times INTEL would fail and leave the GPU market. I admit when I'm wrong. Good for Intel.

 

[maxxcool7421]

They sold all 50 cards! excellent :| this dGPU series will NOT survive the cost cuts .. buyer beware.

 

[brucek]

Take what he says with a grain of salt, he has been wrong so many times.

His information source, if you believe him, is well-placed leakers in the industry. And when you're getting information from such people, it is important to distinguish between future plans - which are always subject to change - and past/current results, which are objective fact.

I mention this because if he tells us a year out that Mfr. A is planning to do this, he could be absolutely right at the time as to the current plans and then wrong a year later when something in between caused those plans to change. It was still interesting info.

Then there's questions like the current story. The amount of inventory received by major retailers is a knowable objective fact. He claims he heard from two major US retailers that their total supply was minimal. Apparently HUB heard something else. I have no idea who is right but I'd like to know. Maybe future reporting can bring us the definitive answer.

 

[Axeia]

Although I wouldn't consider MLID the most reliable source he does make a valid point imo.

Are the cards out of stock because they're so popular or are they out of stock because barely any were shipped? It doesn't seem like an awful lot were shipped, perhaps Intel was caught offguard by the demand. Or... they did what they have done before were they promised shareholders they'd ship a certain product at a certain time and technically do so... by making them in extremely limited quantity.

At the very least it helped set a an expectation when it comes to pricing for the upcoming AMD and NVIDIA products. I had high hopes for AMD going at it aggressively but now that they stopped 7900XTX production that very much seems like they don't want it topping the bang-a-buck charts which doesn't promise much good for the pricing of the upcoming cards.

Time will tell how this all plays out.

 

[ChipBoundary]

Reasonably performant GPU for a reasonable price sells well - who knew!

It's almost like nVidia have strangled the market for years with really poor products at massively inflated prices and AMD have happily tagged along for the ride...

Poor products? They outperform all competitors by a mile and their software is more stable than any other offering. I'd happily and instantaneously jump ship to a better alternative to Nvidia, but there basically hasn't been one for decades. This isn't viable, either. It is a budget card with absolutely terrible software that is decades behind even AMD.

Also, the reason it's selling out is because they hardly made any. They have a zero percent market share, pushing out a massive quantity of cards would at best irresponsible. Give it a year and their sales will continue to slide and they will gain absolutely no market share. Nobody wants budget cards except a very small percentage of the gaming population, same with high end cards.

 

[yannus]

If it sells well, good for Intel, if it doesn't but seems to do so, good too. About them loosing money, come on, manufacturers will always cry like babies to justify the prices.

 

[Axeia]

Nobody wants budget cards except a very small percentage of the gaming population, same with high end cards.

NVIDIA xx60 class performance isn't wanted?
Please explain to me how 6 of the top 7 cards in the steam survey are Nvidia xx60 cards?
Im not saying everyone wants that level of performance but that's where good enough performance for 1080p (the most commonly used resolution) starts and what people can afford.
It's also where AMD had the most success with cards like the RX580 and RX6600.

What the majority of people want is a $200 card that runs any 1080p game you want at a decent framerate. Although 2560x1440 will be the new minimum at some point. (It's increased in popularity and had become very affordable)

What people don't want is performance below that like NVIDIAs RTX 3050 or AMDs RX 6500. Not only do they not properly do 1080p their price to performance ratio is also worse.
High end cards aren't unwanted, their price is. People just want affordable 1080p gaming and for a long time that has been $150-$250 cards in $600-1000 rigs that's what we're used to and want. Sadly the pandemic shortage plus mining bubble got rid of that segment.

 

[Argely]

I don't get why nobody is talking about the 250$ promise.
It's a great card at that price everybody agrees with, but irl it's being sold for a lot more.
Even at launch it (B580) was being sold at mindfactory for 361$
This article says that newegg has models between $379 and $429.
Those are close to 7700xt prices.
So the whole best value thing is just not there, so why even consider one ?!
And who actually saw these cards being sold for 249$

 

[Loadedaxe]

I don't get why nobody is talking about the 250$ promise.
It's a great card at that price everybody agrees with, but irl it's being sold for a lot more.
Even at launch it (B580) was being sold at mindfactory for 361$
This article says that newegg has models between $379 and $429.
Those are close to 7700xt prices.
So the whole best value thing is just not there, so why even consider one ?!
And who actually saw these cards being sold for 249$

NE started preorders at $249, however that was short lived. It was only available for a few days then went to "Out of stock"

On Amazon, there is WEELIAO selling Gunnir models for $369-$409, but they have had those up since release date. I dont think they are selling much, they are also on NE and currently in stock. But at that price people are going stick to NV and AMD.

It was definitely a hmmmmm moment, they drop, people are amazed at price to performance and yet no one can get one.

 

[Cracken]

It appears I was wrong. I said many times INTEL would fail and leave the GPU market. I admit when I'm wrong. Good for Intel.

Could be the exit strategy is already taking place. They book production way ahead. This is why it makes sense so few B580 are out there...they made as few of them ad they could get away with, a way of keeping profit loss to a minimum.

 

[Roboyt0]

According to MLID, Intel is losing about 20 dollars for every B580 gpu it sells. Therfore this is a paper lounch with nonexistent inventory and it will allways be out of stock... Intel can't afford subsedizing the market in large quantities to get a real share in the gpu business

Interesting considering W1zzard from TechPowerUp.com stated that there should be plenty of margin in the product to drop the price when 5060 and 8600 release from Team Green & Red.

Quoted from the conclusion of the B580 review:

"Pricing is crucial in this market segment, and the A770's price was constrained by the expensive VRM components. In contrast, the B580 seems to be properly designed with this segment in mind and looks like it could sell for $200 or less."