Panther Lake handhelds are coming — and they could give AMD’s Xbox Ally X a run for its money

Intel Tech Tour 2025 has wrapped up, and with its departure comes the reveal of Intel's biggest plans for the next year. Panther Lake is on the way as Intel Core Ultra (Series 3), and it's easily the most advanced platform Intel has put out.

I learned a lot about Panther Lake, Intel Arc graphics, semiconductor fabrication, and more during my time with Intel in Chandler, AZ, but a single, random statement during one of the keynotes grabbed my attention: gaming handhelds with Panther Lake inside are on the horizon.

PC gaming handhelds, like the upcoming Xbox Ally, are all the rage in some circles right now, but they're dominated by AMD silicon. Companies have attempted Intel-powered handhelds, like the MSI Claw, but they've either been lackluster or frustratingly difficult to obtain. Next year, though, we could see more powerful and more efficient handhelds powered by Intel Panther Lake, and I can't wait.

Intel Panther Lake could be incredible for handheld gaming

If you want all the details, I did a deeper dive on what makes Intel's Panther Lake chips so exciting. I even dedicated separate posts to the Intel 18A technology behind Panther Lake and everything you need to know about the latest Intel Arc GPUs inside these chips.

There's a lot of information there, but I'll summarize the most important points here. Panther Lake is the latest generation of mobile Intel chips, and it'll release under the Intel Core Ultra brand. There are some major upgrades across the board, including to memory bandwidth, which give Panther Lake the efficiency of 2024's Lunar Lake and the performance of 2024's Arrow Lake.

More firepower and less power draw are obviously great for handheld gaming, but the real star of the show is the Intel Arc B-Series integrated graphics. Brand-new Xe3 cores and upgraded ray tracing units deliver the usual next-gen improvements alongside support for XeSS 3 — Intel's suite of AI-powered gaming features that now includes Multi-Frame Generation.

Intel also focused a lot on platform tuning with Panther Lake, making this platform far smarter at allocating resources across the chipset. With intense workloads (like gaming), Panther Lake will enjoy fewer CPU spikes and GPU stutters, ensuring more stable performance across long sessions.

With up to 16 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores, Intel Panther Lake could put up a stellar fight against AMD's Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme, the current flagship chipset inside handhelds like the Lenovo Legion Go 2 and Xbox Ally X.

Intel teased that we will see gaming handhelds powered by Panther Lake next year, too, so we'll be able to pit this platform against AMD's best. I haven't been sold by previous Intel-powered gaming handhelds, though, and AMD is showing no sign of slowing down with handhelds.

Panther Lake could be the future, but the Xbox Ally is here today

AMD may be the de facto choice for silicon with gaming handhelds right now, but Intel showed its usually laptop-bound processors can make for a mean handheld with the MSI Claw 8 AI+.

The problem with that handheld is two-fold, though. On one hand, Intel hardware helps make the MSI Claw 8 AI+ absurdly expensive — on par with more established and less quirky AMD alternatives. On the other hand, the MSI Claw is also frustratingly difficult to even find in stock.

The potential is there, though, and everything I've heard and seen about Intel's Panther Lake chips screams "much better for handheld gaming." Is it worth waiting to see if Panther Lake leaps far enough ahead to put Intel on even footing with AMD in this category, though?

After all, MSI is the only major brand to embrace Intel in handheld devices... and even then, MSI recently announced an AMD version of the Claw handheld. We won't see any other company announce a Panther Lake handheld at least until January of 2026, too.

In the meantime, the Xbox Ally and Ally X are right around the corner, and we more-or-less know exactly what to expect — some of the best PC gaming handhelds you can buy right now. I'm optimistic that Intel could become a far more competitive option for handheld manufacturers in 2026, but AMD can give you a sure thing right now.

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