Intel probably didn't anticipate such a craze for its B580 Limited Edition cards, which seem to be hard to find in stores.
In September 2022, Intel finally returned to the graphics card market after an absence of more than ten years. At the same time, the American company put an end to the AMD/NVIDIA duel by positioning itself as a third option. At the time, ARC Alchemist cards were to occupy the market for just over a year, with the ARC Battlemage generation due to follow in early 2024. Intel was anxious to resolve the ARC Alchemist driver problems before going any further, and so the ARC B580s were not released until December 12.
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A delay of several months that clearly didn't dampen the spirits of fans. It has to be said that the ARC B580 Limited Edition's quality/price ratio was rather attractive: $249 for a card on a par with the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, sounded like a good, even great deal. Unfortunately, the bargain didn't last very long: as soon as they became available in the countries where they were marketed, the cards produced by Intel found themselves out of stock. This situation only concerns Intel models, however, and not partner models from other brands, which often tried to charge more. In France, the situation is a little different still, since only partner boards - ASRock with its ARC B580 Challenger and ARC B580 Steel Legend, for example - were available for this December 12 launch... at the more dissuasive price of 329 euros. Although they're undoubtedly selling out, they're still in stock.
It seems that France will not be concerned by the ARC B580 Limited Edition boards produced by Intel until the beginning of January. This date should coincide with the return to stock of this model in the countries previously served. Perhaps this time stocks will be more substantial? Let's hope so for Intel, which has every interest in making the most of the good price/performance ratio of its ARC B580s while it still can. Indeed, at the beginning of January, AMD and NVIDIA will be at CES 2025 in Las Vegas to present their new graphics cards, and if we can assume that they won't all be immediately available - especially at the ARC B580's price level - there's a good chance that Battlemage will soon be outdistanced.
