3 months of Intel ARC (Personal opinion and experience)
The good, the bad, and reality.
After 3 months with the i5 11400F + Intel arc B580 combo, and since I have a dual boot of Windows and Linux, I can experience both.
(Note: I want to state that for both Linux and Windows, I have always prioritized using the most up-to-date and stable drivers possible (WHQL and Mesa standard).)
The good: I upgraded from an RX 6600 to this ARC B580 12GB, and it's truly a step up in experience. The Intel card performs very well at 1080p (although it's recommended for 1440p, I found the 1080p experience much better). Additionally, it's a GPU that allowed me to test and use ray tracing functionally for the first time (I was able to use Cyberpunk PS5 equivalent + Ray Tracing + Intel XESS UQ and achieve a solid, stable 72fps).
The Intel XESS XMX is undoubtedly a "great evolution" compared to the AMD FSR 3.1.4 that I was forced to use with the 6600. In ultra quality mode, I can barely differentiate it from the native settings. It still has its flaws; it's clearly below DLSS 4.5 and FSR 4.1 (as commented by Digital Foundry, the Intel XESS XMX is very close to DLSS 3.7, so it's not a "bad" positioning by Intel).
Finally, it's a GPU that handles games with DX12 and Vulkan APIs very well. The extra VRAM provides greater longevity compared to the RTX 5050, 7600, and 4060.
The bad:
I have some things to point out regarding this "bad" aspect, as it's not something generalized in the experience.
Firstly, I noticed that the Intel drivers behave very strangely in DX11 and DX9, not in terms of performance itself, but the CPU usage is higher than in the most recent, more demanding games. (driver overhead still has room to evolve)
I even had crash problems in games like Cyberpunk, Fallout New Vegas, and NFS Heat with the drivers I tested when I got the card in February. (I haven't experienced any crashes in those same games between april and may, which indicates that driver stability has also improved.)
Another criticism I need to make is how much inferior Intel's Linux drivers are compared to Windows. It makes sense for Intel to focus on areas with more users, but the lack of XMX on Linux is a real shame. In DirectX 12 games, be prepared to lose 25-35% of performance due to VKD3D, which doesn't handle Intel ARC graphics cards well. DXVK also has some performance loss, but the margin is much smaller.
The reality:
My current view of the Intel ARC B580, based on recent Linux and Windows drivers, is that Intel's drivers have improved and are progressing at an interesting pace, bringing features like Intel XESS 3 and Intel Shader Pre-caching making this gpu pretty good.
However, I still see room for improvement in these areas (which are PURELY driver-related issues).
Remember that I'm citing problems and improvements that Intel CAN and SHOULD make or continue making until the industrial peak of this GPU, which I believe will be by December 2027 (purely driver-related problems or issues that drivers can improve).
1- CPU overhead (severely improved but still not acceptable), this being the most cited problem in the Intel community), specific CPU-bound games at 1080p where mid-range CPUs struggle.
2- This GPU can gain +8-20% AVERAGE performance in various games, given that there are games with very similar APIs and requirements that show a SIGNIFICANT performance discrepancy. (This includes general optimizations and game-by-game optimizations that Intel performs, but may also include improvements with certain game engines).
3- Expansion of "Intel Shader Pre-caching" support.
4- Overall driver efficiency (scheduling, power states, memory management).
5- Visual corruptions/artifacts, stuttering/1% lows, stability issues after driver updates, problems with content creation apps (DanVinci, OBS), crashing, multi-monitor/dual GPU.