ASRock Presents Arc B580 Challenger & Steel Legend GPUs at CES 2025

[T0@st]

ASRock has showcased its custom design Intel Arc B580 12 GB "Battlemage" GPU-based graphics cards at CES 2025—these offerings sat somewhat unnoticed next to a whole heap of newly revealed AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 models. A TechPowerUp staffer took the opportunity to analyze ASRock's B580 Challenger OC and Steel Legend OC demonstration samples. Team Blue's wallet friendly pricing at launch (around mid-December) resulted in stock being swiftly snapped up—many budget hardware enthusiasts have missed out on handling the initial batches of Battlemage. ASRock's dual-fan Arc B580 Challenger OC sports a new design scheme—also featured on a nearby triple-fan Radeon RX 9070 model. An understated gray-black shroud sports a single RGB lighting strip on its top side.

The longer triple-fan configured ASRock Arc B580 Steel Legend OC model is already a familiar sight for many regular readers of TechPowerUp's review section. W1zzard's mid-December evaluation deemed this card worthy of receiving two awards: "Highly Recommended" and "Great Value." Steel Legend sits above Challenger in ASRock's product hierarchy, so the extra cost gets you an almost all-white design, a larger cooling solution and more RGB lighting zones. The CES 2025 demonstration unit appears to be a normal retail example—no big surprises or revelations to report. We hope that Team Blue and its manufacturing partners are doing their best to replenish B580 GPU stock.



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[AusWolf]

The Challenger looks nice enough... Only if it didn't have that RGB strip!

Let's hope availability will be better than it was with the A-series Arc cards. I could barely find any here in the UK during their whole life cycle.

 

[lukart]

The Challenger looks nice enough... Only if it didn't have that RGB strip!

Let's hope availability will be better than it was with the A-series Arc cards. I could barely find any here in the UK during their whole life cycle.

I'm pretty sure you can disable the RGB via software. But I agree with you, looks to have a decent size fans to run cool.

 

[AusWolf]

I'm pretty sure you can disable the RGB via software. But I agree with you, looks to have a decent size fans to run cool.

That is my problem exactly. I don't want no damn software just to disable some rainbow puke. I'm on Linux anyway. I doubt their RGB software works there.

 

[_roman_]

I had a graphic card which could not turn of the RGB stuff. Not Asrock brand.
edit: proper graphic cards have a mechanical switch for different rgb colors and also a position to turn of the rgb stuff

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The Asrock Challenger 6600XT 8GB D had a very poor cooler and very cheap - non expensive build quality for a 450€ card without shipping. I hope they work on the sound profile under load. Bend fins from the cooler and such out from the box.

edit: just remembered something. first Asrock Challenger 6600XT 8GB D had defective pwm fans. Feel free to search for my post at computerbase.de. Some non tech guys told me there I was wrong. Nope - Fans were just electrically defective out from the box and spinning at maximum rpm always. I wanted a second opinion so I asked there first. The replacement card had those bend fins from the cooler. Just for information: usually the fans should have a zero fan mode when the computer boots or spin with a very low rpm.

Those Challenger Cards always look quite similar visually - even the cooler.

 

[Wasteland]

That is my problem exactly. I don't want no damn software just to disable some rainbow puke. I'm on Linux anyway. I doubt their RGB software works there.

It doesn't look like OpenRGB supports ASRock GPUs, but it appears to support a number of other GPUs. Worth a try, if you have any lights you want to change/disable.

But yeah in the general case I would try to avoid buying anything with lights that you know ahead of time you don't care for. Also worth mentioning piper, which can handle basic configuration for mice, including mouse RGB, if applicable.

 

[Eva01Master]

I've been trying to buy the Steel Legend for a while already here in the UK, almost impossible...