For three hundred euro in Europe right now you buy the Intel Arc B580 with 12 GB at 299. If three hundred is too much, the Arc B570 at 249, which has the best euro per frame in the whole group. And the RTX 5050, which costs exactly what the B580 costs, is slower and carries four gigabytes less memory.
Writing that about Intel still feels odd to me. The first Arc generation was a story about promises and driver patches, not about buying. The August 2026 numbers are stubborn though, and there is nothing to argue with.
Euro per frame in this budget
Same method as always: the lowest European price divided by the average frame rate. Lower is better. And here is the odd part: the cheapest card in the group is also the best value, which does not happen often.
| Card | Memory | Price, euro | FPS 1080p | FPS 1440p | Euro per frame, 1080p |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Arc B570 | 10 GB | 249 | 63.5 | 44.3 | 3.92 |
| Radeon RX 7600 | 8 GB | 289 | 69.9 | 45.4 | 4.13 |
| Intel Arc B580 | 12 GB | 299 | 71.5 | 50.7 | 4.18 |
| GeForce RTX 5050 | 8 GB | 299 | 69.3 | 45.2 | 4.31 |
| GeForce RTX 3050 | 8 GB | 229 | 44.6 | 29.8 | 5.13 |
| Radeon RX 6600 | 8 GB | 285 | 51.9 | 24.8 | 5.49 |
Intel Arc B580 at 299 euro
Twelve gigabytes of memory in this budget exist only here. The RX 7600 and the RTX 5050 have eight, the B570 has ten. You will not see the difference in an ultra preset at 1080p, where everything runs close together. You will see it in texture packs, in mods and at 1440p, which comes next.
- 71.5 frames at 1080p. Faster than the RTX 5050 at the same money and faster than the RX 7600, which is ten euro cheaper.
- One hard requirement. Intel says it plainly in its own quick start guide: Resizable BAR or Smart Access Memory must be enabled for Arc B-series cards, otherwise performance will not be what it should. That is a motherboard BIOS setting, and older boards may not have it at all.
- Who should skip it. If you mostly play older titles on decade-old engines, Intel drivers still behave less predictably there than AMD or NVIDIA ones.
What happens at 1440p
This is where the group splits. The B580 holds 50.7 frames while the whole eight gigabyte crowd drops to around forty five. A twelve percent gap, from a field that was almost level at 1080p.
Look at the RX 6600 separately. It does 51.9 frames at 1080p, already weak for a 285 euro card, and falls to 24.8 at 1440p. That is not a gentle decline, it is a cliff: the card runs out of memory and bandwidth at the same time.
Arc B570 at 249 euro
This is the card for a genuinely tight budget. 3.92 euro per frame, the best figure in the group, ten gigabytes of memory and 63.5 frames at 1080p. It trails the B580 by eleven percent and costs fifty euro less.
The Resizable BAR requirement is the same, it covers the whole B series. Check the BIOS before you buy, not after.
What not to buy at this money
- RTX 3050 at 229 euro. 44.6 frames. The Arc B570 costs twenty euro more and is forty two percent faster. Saving twenty euro for that gap is a bad trade.
- RX 6600 at 285 euro. 51.9 frames at 1080p and a collapse to 24.8 at 1440p. The RX 7600 does 69.9 for the same money.
- Anything below 220 euro. European retail fills that shelf with cards like the RX 6500 XT and the RX 550, sold as new hardware while being office machine parts in practice.
Is it worth adding fifty six euro
Honest answer: if you have them, yes. The RTX 5060 costs 355 euro and does 88.5 frames, twenty four percent more than the B580. Its euro per frame is 4.01, better than three of our four cards. Eight gigabytes is its weak spot, but in raw 1080p speed it is in another class.
If you do not have that money, nothing terrible happens. The B580 at 299 covers 1080p with room to spare and does not fall apart at 1440p.
The verdict
Under 300 euro take the Arc B580, under 250 take the Arc B570, and in both cases open the BIOS first and make sure Resizable BAR is there. The RTX 5050 at 299 euro I do not recommend: for the same money a faster card with more memory is sitting next to it.
Prices are captured on the first of each month. These are from 30 August 2026.
Sources
Prices: Geizhals graphics card listing, lowest offer per model on 30 August 2026, VAT included, shipping excluded.
Frame rates: Tom's Hardware GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy, average FPS across their test suite at the ultra preset.
Resizable BAR requirement: Intel Arc desktop quick start guide.
