Teardown
The teardown of the Sparkle Intel Arc Pro B60 is comparatively simple, as the cooler is mounted with just a few screws and no concealed mounting points. After removing the backplate and the cooling housing, a classic blower structure is revealed with a solid base plate above the GPU, several heat conducting pads for memory and voltage converters as well as a compact radial fan.
The real problem, however, is the power supply. Sparkle has not placed the 8-pin PCIe connector directly on the PCB, but has routed it to the front side via an internal cable extension. This solution looks improvised and poses a considerable safety risk. Under the microscope, it can be clearly seen that the metal edge of the housing, through which the yellow and black wires are routed, has not been properly deburred. There are visible nicks and pressure marks in the sheathing of the cables in several places, which are only separated from each other by the plastic insulator.
The measurement with the profile scanner shows a notch depth of around 490 µm, which represents a significant risk of chafing or leakage currents in relation to the typical wall thickness of the insulation. Under mechanical stress or increased temperature, this edge could damage the insulation in the long term. The design therefore not only represents an avoidable manufacturing problem, but also a potential safety deficit that should not occur in a professional workstation product in this price range. With a bit of bad luck, however, the manufacturer’s name may become a sparking reality sooner than you might like. Nomen est omen.
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Topology of the power supply
A comparison of the power supply topology of the Sparkle Intel Arc Pro B60 with the previously shown B50 reveals parallels in the basic structure as well as significant adjustments to the voltage converters and their placement. Both cards follow Intel’s reference layout with dedicated rails for GPU core (VDDC), memory controller (VDDCI), GDDR6 memory (MSVDD or VDDQ), as well as auxiliary supplies such as 5 V, 1.8 V and fan PWM. The sections on the B50 are clearly separated from each other: the two VRM zones for VDDC and VDDCI are located on the left-hand side, close to the slot bracket, each with their own phases, while the memory supply (MSVDD or VDDQ) is located on the top side towards the end of the PCB. The 5 V circuit and the area around the VBIOS chip are located in the bottom right-hand corner, while the fan controller is located separately above the GPU package.
The B60 retains this structure in principle, although the power distribution has changed slightly due to the higher GPU power consumption and the 24 GB memory. The GPU supply (VDDC) is still located near the PCIe connector, recognizable by the six LR12 inductors and the flanking capacitor rows, which indicates a 6-phase supply. Directly next to it, in the middle below the GPU, is the VDDCI supply, whose components are smaller and presumably use two phases.
The area above the die accommodates eight GDDR6 packages, which are fed via a busbar. The rail responsible for this (MSVDD or VDDQ) is located on the top side of the board, on the right above the chip. Here you can see a single ferrite core with flanking MOSFETs – typical for the memory supply with low current but constant load. On the right-hand side near the PCIe finger is the 5 V stage with a small coil and local DC/DC regulator, next to it is the VBIOS power supply. These sections correspond almost exactly to the B50, which indicates a reused sub-design. The positioning of the monitoring IC and EEPROM on the rear (also analogous to the B570) is also consistent with this. In contrast to the B50, Sparkle has apparently revised the filtering and current measurement on the 12 V input side of the B60 in order to compensate for the load currents of the more powerful GPU. However, the basic layout remains clearly typical of Intel, with high modularity and clear separation of the function groups.
The memory assembly consists of twelve Samsung K4ZAF325BC-SC20 GDDR6 chips. These chips are 16-Gb dies in 180-FBGA, organizationally 512M×32, with nominal rates of up to 20 Gb/s and are operated here at 19 Gb/s. This results in a total capacity of 24 GB and a bandwidth of 456 GB/s with a bus width of 192 bits. A Winbond SPI-NOR of type W25Q64JW, 64 Mbit, 1.7 to 1.95 V, typically in a SOIC-8 housing, serves as the firmware memory. This component contains the VBIOS and the associated parameters for initialization and power-up. The identifier 25Q64JWSIQ matches the publicly documented variants.
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The TI IC labeled L2901 belongs to the LM2901 family of quad-differential comparators and is used for power-good signals, threshold monitoring and sequencing. The functional principle and the pin compatibility are described in the TI data sheet, the monitoring of the rail signals and the evaluation for enable lines match the layout shown. The gate drivers and the multiphase controller are recognizably from Alpha & Omega Semiconductor, the manufacturer can be identified by the AOS logo. The applied short codes such as BP09, AE67B, AK6CE and AC00 are manufacturer-specific markings. Functionally, it is an AOS multiphase PWM controller for VDDC in combination with AOS gate drivers or DrMOS stages on the individual phases. AOS documents such controller and driver families for graphics card VRMs that provide precisely this interaction of phase control, current measurement and protection functions. The component analysis thus shows a classic, well-segmented workstation topology: an AOS-based, multi-phase core controller for VDDC with flanking gate drivers, separate, lower-dimensioned stages for VDDCI and the GDDR6 rails, TI comparators for monitoring and sequencing as well as Winbond SPI flash for the firmware. Here is a high-resolution microscopy view of all the important components:
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- 1 - Intro, overview and technical data
- 2 - Test system and equipment
- 3 - Teardown: PCB, topology and components
- 4 - Teardown: Cooler and fan
- 5 - Teardown: Material analysis and TIM testing
- 6 - Autodesk AutoCAD
- 7 - Autodesk Inventor Pro
- 8 - PTC Creo
- 9 - Dassault Systèmes Solidworks
- 10 - Autodesk Maya
- 11 - SPECviewperf 15 (2025)
- 12 - Adobe Photoshop 26.10
- 13 - Adobe After Effects 2025
- 14 - Adobe Premiere Pro 25.41
- 15 - AI benchmarks (AI Vision, Image, Text)
- 16 - Rendering
- 17 - Temperatures, clock rate, power consumption, noise
- 18 - Summary and conclusion
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