ASRock Challenger Arc Graphics B570 Arrives For Linux Testing

The Intel Arc Graphics B570 graphics card isn't hitting retailers until January and the review embargo doesn't expire until then, but fair game now are pictures/video of the Arc B570 hardware... The ASRock Challenger Arc Graphics B570 arrived today for Linux testing at Phoronix in the coming weeks for this second Battlemage graphics card.

The ASRock Challenger B570 arrived today for conducting Linux support and performance benchmarking at Phoronix. No performance information or other details can be shared until next month but Intel says the packaging and graphics card are allowed for sharing upon arrival.

Earlier this month Intel announced the Arc B-Series "Battlemage" comprised initially of the Arc B570 and Arc B580. The Arc B580 launched back on the 13th at $249 USD while the $219 Arc B570 isn't launching until 16 January.

The Arc Graphics B570 as a reminder has 18 Xe cores down from 20 with the B580 (and similar dropping from 20 to 18 for ray-tracing units), 144 XMX AI engines down from 160, a 2500MHz graphics clock down from 2670MHz, and 10GB of video memory on a 160-bit bus rather than the 12GB 192-bit video memory with the B580.

This cut-down Battlemage graphics card has a 150 Watt board power that can be powered off a single PCIe 8-pin power connector compared to 190 Watts with the Arc B580. And the pricing is around $30 less at $219+ for the Arc Graphics B570 from Intel's AIB partners.

So while we can't talk about Linux support/performance on the Arc Graphics B570, it's a sibling to the Arc Graphics B580 and can thus expect similar Linux capabilities. For now you can check out the recent Arc Graphics B580 Linux testing such as the workstation graphics performance, Windows 11 vs. Linux comparison, Linux gaming benchmarks, and GPU compute performance.

For those wondering, the packaging only mentions Windows 10 and Windows 11 support... Not that it really matters, but always entertaining over the years to see what graphics card AIB packages mention Linux or not.

So stay tuned to Phoronix in January for learning more about the Arc Graphics B570 on open-source. With the latter launch of the B570 graphics cards compared to the B580, we'll see what more Linux kernel or Mesa Iris Gallium3D or ANV Vulkan driver optimizations land ahead of the 16th.