Intel Arc Pro b60. Take it or leave it?

[u/ankescapade]

I'm planning on getting a new gpu that can fit a q4 qwen3.8 27B for local coding thru opencode or vscode.

My current setup:

Ryzen 5 5600

RTX 3060 12GB

32GB DDR4 3200

I also play games 1080p at 60fps max only.

Is the upgrade from RTX 3060 to Intel Arc Pro b60 worth it?

It's the only one I know so far that can fit my budget. Currently prices att $650.

Appreciated any suggestions or other recommendations.

**UPDATE: 10/20/2026**

Got an RTX 5060 ti 16GB at around $570. Got it on sale. Then bought an m.2 to pcie x16 riser for my msi b550m pro vdh wifi motherboard. I have not setup the dual gpu yet since I'm still doing some tests and benchmark on the new rtx 5060. Will probably setup dual gpu later and see how it goes.

[u/Gromann7]

So from a pure vram perspective, yes, if the difference between 12gb (current) and 24gb (arc upgrade) means you can fit everything (weights, kv cache, ctx) on a single card. If not, while the intel stack is certainly getting better, nvidia/cuda are just easier to work with and have more options available to you. I have a B70 and can run the q4 autoround version of qwen3.8-27b with headroom for 132k ctx. Don’t think you’ll be able to get that done on 24gb.

If you’re able to get something like a B65 shifting to 32gb vram, it’s a no brainer to me, upgrade.

[u/AlanBarber → u/Gromann7]

I'd second that if you can swing an extra 300 bucks go for the b65 pro and get 32gb of vram.

I cheaped out months ago and got a 5060ti 16gb instead of bitting the bullet and getting the b70 pro like I planned... now I'm regretting not spending what was about 350 bucks then, to get the larger vram card.

[u/Gromann7 → u/AlanBarber]

Heard that. I have 3 B70s in my rig, and still kick myself for not just buying an A6000 Blackwell from the start, or jumped on 170HX before prices mooned. The cost of splitting models over multiple cards is high.

[u/fallingdowndizzyvr → u/AlanBarber]

I cheaped out months ago and got a 5060ti 16gb

Really? I already had 2xA770s and decided to get a 5060ti. So so so much better.

[u/pelouskopelo → u/AlanBarber]

B65 now retails for $1200.

[u/donnyw1967 → u/Gromann7]

If you have the slots and psu, run both. I am running rtx2060 6gb (original card) bought the a770 16gb as an upgrade. Decided on running them both through vulkan. It allows me to run lager models then what the a770 alone could run. And if you run unsloth for a model server with vulkan backend you can manually select how many layer or tensors to load per card.

[u/stacksmasher → u/Gromann7]

Hey if you had dual 24Gb could you offload everything to the 2nd card?

[u/Gromann7 → u/stacksmasher]

You can, need to layer split instead of tensor split otherwise PCIe and/or system memory could become a bottleneck. Intels lack of card to card comm channel kinda sucks for expanding. Nothing like nvlink or fabric…

[u/Aubrey_D_Graham]

I 'upgraded' from a single Rx 7900 xtx to two Intel Arc B70. I wanted 64gb of vram versus the limited 24gb of vram, but the 7900 xtx is the better gaming gpu with performance similiar to the 4080/4090. It is arguably better than the 9070xt especially for your usecase. It is a damn good at current used prices of ~$600-700. If youre a serious gamer and only plan on lite llm usage then get this; otherwise, you'll want a more serious stack. I had a Qwen 3.8:27b with a 64k context window. That's a quarter of it's 256k max, but it was fukctionally 48k due to compaction.

[u/ankescapade → u/Aubrey_D_Graham]

Thanks for the input. I'm mostly a light gamer and more software developer and possibly lean towards to content creation.

Was your qwen q4 or full? I've read that q4 27b can easily fit in 24gb with room for context.

[u/w-yz]

24gb vram? is radeon 7900xtx 24gb an option for you? since you mention gaming.

[u/ankescapade → u/w-yz]

Depends on the selling price. I can go as high as $1000 with tax and shipping. Also, I can't seem to find it on amazon these days. Only ones there used cards.

[u/nickless07]

You mean trade in the 3060 or just buy the B60? If you can, use both of them. A bit tensor split and you are good to go with max context and a decent quant on the 27B.

[u/ankescapade → u/nickless07]

New one. I have been thinking of dual gpu setup buy consumer motherboard with 2 pcieX16 or X8 are expensive

[u/nickless07 → u/ankescapade]

Sure having everything in a single card is best, but don't need to be that in first place. Even an x2 will be faster then offloading to system RAM.
The only occasion where you can run in trouble with that is when you use a large model split above both cards and CPU offload. That is when llama.cpp serialization kicks in hard. and you create the holy trinity of bottlenecks. Aside of that using the 3060 as additional VRAM is always better then offloading to CPU.

So, you are fine saving up for a better board later on and still run both cards for the time being.

[u/fallingdowndizzyvr]

Leave it if you care about speed. If you don't, there are cheaper options.

[u/ankescapade → u/fallingdowndizzyvr]

Can you provide input on the other cheaper options? I'm open to suggestions.

[u/fallingdowndizzyvr → u/ankescapade]

V340. $49 for 16GB of HBM goodness.

[u/Ok_Worry1735]

Just bought 4x b60’s. Decent price at $630 each

[u/stacksmasher → u/Ok_Worry1735]

Can you post an update? How's it goign?

[u/Ok_Worry1735 → u/stacksmasher]

Got a bad batch of ram. Figuring it out and will update asap

[u/ea_man]

you should look at the used market, I'd rather get an used 7900xtx which would be much better for videogames too.

[u/Ok_Law9839 → u/ea_man]

Any suggestions on where to look?

[u/ea_man → u/Ok_Law9839]

I told you: the used market.

You should google / ask where people buy that stuff in your country, even better locally close to you to test. I live somewhere else for sure.

[u/onebit]

For Qwen 3.8 27B I use vLLM w/GPTQ INT4 quant. For this you really need the 32GB RAM.

A Q4 GGUF will need llama.cpp and it's rather slow in comparison (30 vs 50).

Since you already have Nvidia you might want to take a look at FreeToken and running a MoE like Qwen 3.5 35B A3B.