Disassembly of the Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition video card showed an asymmetric GPU and slow Samsung memory

Intel showed the Arc B580 graphics card in its proprietary Limited Edition version without a cooler as part of yesterday’s presentation, but reviewers are not officially allowed to disassemble the new product until December 12, while the ban on publishing reviews is in effect. The MyDrivers portal team seems to have ignored this ban and shared several photos of the video card without a cooling system.

Image source: MyDrivers

As previously reported, the Arc B580 will also be produced in the proprietary Limited Edition version of Intel itself. This version was developed primarily for reviews, but will also go to stores as a more affordable alternative to the solutions of the company’s partners. According to Intel graphics department lead engineer Tom Petersen, the proprietary card will not be produced in large quantities. As soon as retailers’ stocks run out, there will be no new supplies.

The Arc B580 is powered by a BGM-G21 GPU with 20 Xe2 cores. The photo of the board shows that for some reason the GPU crystal is shifted to the lower left edge of the textolite substrate. The graphics card’s PCB is much smaller than that of the older model of the previous generation, the ACM-G10-based Arc A770. But the Arc A580 model with the ACM-G12 chip had the same board size.

For the reference Arc B580 Limited Edition, Intel has developed a new circuit board and cooler. The length of the board is less than half the length of the cooling system itself.

The reference version of the card uses Samsung GDDR6 memory chips rated at 20 Gbps per pin. Officially, the Arc B580 claims a memory speed of 19 Gbps per pin. Previously, Intel hinted that its new Arc graphics management application would allow VRAM to be overclocked to 22 Gbps. However, it is unknown whether all the presented cards in the series will be able to offer this level of overclocking.

The Intel card is not equipped with a modern 12+4-pin power connector (like the latest generations of Nvidia GeForce) and has a regular 8-pin PCIe connector. According to Intel, the time-tested connector is quite sufficient given the card’s power consumption level, which is only 190 W. Even custom Arc B580 models have a slightly higher TDP – up to 210 W. One PCIe power connector can handle this, but some versions of the Arc B580 are equipped with two such connectors at once.

The Arc B580 Limited Edition will go on sale next week. Its recommended price is $249.