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Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

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Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#31

Post by canpan »

SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #8

Here are some llama.cpp benchmarks for it: https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-arc-pro-b70-linux/3

Just ran llama-bench at home with the similar priced AMD AI PRO R9700 32G. The phoronix numbers look extremely low? Probably I misunderstand their test bench. Anyway, here are some numbers. Maybe someone with access to a B70 can post a comparison.

Tried to use the same model as the article:

llama-bench -m gpt-oss-20b-Q8_0.gguf -ngl 999 -p 2048 -n 128

AMD R9700 pp2048=3867 tg128=175

And a bigger model, because testing a tiny model with a 32GB card feels like a waste:

llama-bench -m Qwen3.6-27B-UD-Q6_K_XL.gguf -ngl 999 -p 2048 -n 128

AMD R9700 pp2048=917 tg128=22

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#32

Post by cmxch »

arjie wrote: post #27

I was looking into this for LLMs but it's clearly a graphics-processing focused card. The memory bandwidth is too low for that much RAM to be useful in an LLM context. The 5090 I have has the same amount of RAM but far more bandwidth and that makes it much more useful.

It’s 32gb for people who can’t go for scalped 5090s but have a 3090 budget.

I have a pair of them with a 9480 and the only thing I have to do is keep the cache happy.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#33

Post by embedding-shape »

kinow wrote: post #25

For those that use Blender, in their section about Blender: > We hope that, in the future, there will be real options other than NVIDIA for GPU-based rendering, as it is an area where competition is nearly non-existent. And Checking opendata.blender.org, a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU scores 5301.8, while Intel Arc Pro B70 is still at 3824.64. So there is still a bit more to go before Intel GPUs perform close t…

Also the first section I jumped to :) To Intel's credit, seems they're slowly improving, the section starts with:

> Over the last year or two, Intel has worked to deliver serious optimizations for and compatibility with Blender GPU rendering on its Arc GPUs. Although NVIDIA has long held an advantage in the application, our last time looking at Intel’s cards indicated ongoing improvements. This round of testing is no different. We found that the Arc Pro B70 provided more than twice the performance of the B50, also beating the R9700 by 9%.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#34

Post by fluoridation »

cmxch wrote: post #32
arjie wrote: post #27

I was looking into this for LLMs but it's clearly a graphics-processing focused card. The memory bandwidth is too low for that much RAM to be useful in an LLM context. The 5090 I have has the same amount of RAM but far more bandwidth and that makes it much more useful.

It’s 32gb for people who can’t go for scalped 5090s but have a 3090 budget. I have a pair of them with a 9480 and the only thing I have to do is keep the cache happy.

Eh. Trading CUDA for 8 more gigs seems like bad deal, unless you know absolutely for certain what you want to run will run on it.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#35

Post by lambda »

MostlyStable wrote: post #6

Is Intel still making GPUs? I have heard so many conflicting things about will they/won't they stay in the market.

What do you mean, are they still making GPUs? This is a discrete GPU that has just recently been released, and it's one of the most popular GPUs in its class at the moment, due to 32 GiB of RAM for under $1000, which makes it great for LLM inference.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#36

Post by andy_xor_andrew »

canpan wrote: post #31
SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #8

Here are some llama.cpp benchmarks for it: https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-arc-pro-b70-linux/3

Just ran llama-bench at home with the similar priced AMD AI PRO R9700 32G. The phoronix numbers look extremely low? Probably I misunderstand their test bench. Anyway, here are some numbers. Maybe someone with access to a B70 can post a comparison. Tried to use the same model as the article: llama-bench -m gpt-oss-20b-Q8_0.gguf -ngl 999 -p 2048 -n 128 AMD R9700 pp2048=3867 tg128=175 And a bigger model, because testing…

the build they use is from February, over two months old: https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/releases/tag/b8121

Which might not sound like much, but 2months in llm time is a long time, especially regarding support for new hardware like the r9700.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#37

Post by chao- »

dismalaf wrote: post #12
MostlyStable wrote: post #6

Is Intel still making GPUs? I have heard so many conflicting things about will they/won't they stay in the market.

They'll always have iGPUs so whether or not they stay in the dGPU market depends mostly on whether or not people buy them. So they might not, whole market seems to be moving to SoCs/APUs/whatever you want to call them.

Not only will they always have iGPUs, but also cannot give up on advancing their datacenter AI GPUs (the next being Jaguar Shores). They need both of those far more than consumer or prosumer dGPUs, but that means they are committed to Big GPU work and Small GPU work.

Since they will have both of those big and small "bookends" of GPU architectures, it is a question of whether they see benefits in maintaining an accessible foothold in the midmarket ecosystem. I could make an argument for both sides of that, but obviously the decision is not up to me.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#39

Post by girvo »

arjie wrote: post #27

I was looking into this for LLMs but it's clearly a graphics-processing focused card. The memory bandwidth is too low for that much RAM to be useful in an LLM context. The 5090 I have has the same amount of RAM but far more bandwidth and that makes it much more useful.

Oh wow, I really would've expected higher memory bandwidth. That's only ~2-3x the little DGX Spark-alike I have to play with. Would've expected more.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B70 Review

#40

Post by girvo »

MostlyStable wrote: post #6

Is Intel still making GPUs? I have heard so many conflicting things about will they/won't they stay in the market.

They appear to be backing out (for a little while) of consumer cards, but datacentre/workstation/laptop GPUs are still their focus.
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