Windows Central Insider
Intel gave us a hint of its quest for handheld gaming domination at CES 2026, where it stated it was working on two new Panther Lake Systems-on-Chip (SoC) designed specifically for portable handheld gaming.
It was revealed that at least 11 partners, including Acer, MSI, and Microsoft, were working with Intel to design new gaming handhelds around these unnamed, unannounced chips.
Five months later, Intel has now unveiled further details about these new Arc G-Series CPUs just ahead of Computex. While we got a sneak peek at a new Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip due to a leaked MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ listing, Intel has also now made the Arc G3 official.
By all means, this appears to be the upgrade I've been waiting for, and the handheld market, largely dominated by AMD Ryzen, is in for a big shakeup.
Intel is taking a two-pronged approach with its new Arc G-Series chips. The Intel Arc G3 debuts with 14 CPU cores and Arc B370 graphics with 10 Xe cores, while the Arc G3 Extreme arrives with 14 CPU cores and Arc B390 graphics with 12 Xe cores.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Intel Arc G3 | Intel Arc G3 Extreme |
CPU Cores / Threads | 14 (2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, 4 LP E-cores) | 14 (2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, 4 LP E-cores) |
GPU | Arc B370 | Arc B390 |
GPU Xe cores | 10 | 12 |
Max frequency | 2.2GHz | 2.3GHz |
TDP range | 8-30W | 8-35W |
The Arc G3 Extreme is really the SoC I'm most excited for. Its Arc B390 integrated graphics first debuted with Intel's high-performance Panther Lake chips (like the Core Ultra X9 388H), featuring 12 Xe GPU cores, a 2.3GHz frequency, and XeSS 3 upscaling capabilities.
XeSS 3 unlocks features like multi-frame generation, super resolution, and low latency, which are all tools that you want in a gaming handheld.
This chip is notably coming to Acer's Predator Atlas 8 gaming handheld, also announced today ahead of Computex.
It features an 8-inch FHD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate, as well as up to 24GB of LPDDR5x RAM and up to 1TB of M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD storage.
Intel says it expects devices using its new Arc G-Series chips to begin rolling out in June 2026, "with broader availability through the year." As to how much these devices will cost in a handheld market being decimated by rising memory and storage costs, I can't say.
Windows Central's take
AMD Ryzen has long been the go-to chip for PC gaming handhelds, and although I think there's a future for ARM-based handhelds, it's great to see Intel entering the ring with a dedicated chip focused on maximizing performance for mobile devices.
Of course, how these chips actually perform won't be known until we get our hands on something like the Predator Atlas 8 or the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, but I'm confident that the stellar Arc GPU foundation that I've already seen in laptop chips will translate to handhelds.
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