Today, we're tearing down the Intel Arc b580 video card from the Battlemage Edition. We're hoping this teardown goes a bit smoother than our previous encounter with the Alchemist cards!
A Quick Look at the Intel Arc B580
The card is a flow-through design. Intel has adopted what Nvidia uses a lot. This design was seen to improve thermals in the past.
Initial Impressions and Walkaround
This is the Intel in-house model of the Arc B580, partners like Sparkle have their versions as well.
The card uses a two-fan design, which is similar to designs from the 20 series. It has a vertically oriented fin stack and is a two slot card. An 8-pin PCIE connector and a large flow-through area indicate the power consumption for this card.
The card has a very simplified LED setup.
Disassembly Begins
To take the card apart, 6 Torx screws are used and there is a tamper seal to get past.
The back plate is plastic which acts as an insulator, though a metal back plate with thermal pads would have been preferred.
Component Analysis
The card uses the same size torx screw for the retention screws. These screws are not captive.
A small piece of adhesive is used to help hold the heat sink, rather than glue. The PCB is small and easily accessible.
The cables come through the back which make them easier to disconnect. The cable routing has been well designed for this version of the card.
Inside, a long narrow piece of silicon is used, which is similar to what you would see in a laptop. There are two memory modules off on the side of the silicon, with four more at the top. The MOs fats have gained some weight and are directly connected to a part of the heat sink.
The silicon has an interesting yellowish discoloration that might be due to a pre-production or final assembly step.
The silicon is approximately 10.8 mm x 25.3 mm, which is about 273 square millimeters (very close to the officially stated 272 square millimeters.)
The card uses a six-stage solution for the core, with a few more scattered around
Heat Sink and Cooling Solution
The heat sink is connected to the memory through thermal pads. It contains a copper cold plate to make direct contact with the GPU silicon.
The mosfet cooling is achieved through a flat plate contact. The heat sink itself is connected to a base plate made of metal that seems to provide more structure than cooling.
The card features a very standard fin stack with no wavy or pin-fin designs. There are four heat pipes running through the fin stack that measure approximately 6mm in diameter.
Fan and Final Thoughts
The fan is not socketed and requires the card to be fully disassembled to remove. This is in contrast to XFX’s Ghost series, which had easily swappable fans.
The fan connector is a 8 pin connection with a 5-6 pin cable coming off of it.
The assembly of this card is massively improved compared to the last try. Intel is relying on its partners (ASRock, Sparkle, and Gunner) to produce the volume of these cards, but this card showed good progress in terms of improved assembly design.
Our review of the card here
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