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[Tom Warren] Intel says it will be launching an "entire handheld gaming platform with Panther Lake" chips later this year
- Thread starter Topher
- Start date
Trogdor1123
Member
New meaning to the grenades.
analog_future
Resident Crybaby
Hopefully Panther Lake brings it. More competition is always better.
Magic Carpet
Gold Member
An ENTIRE handheld?
Intel?
Is this the same Intel I'm thinking of or some new company?
Intel?
Is this the same Intel I'm thinking of or some new company?
Durin
Member
I'm game to see it. They have a window of opportunity to strike, since I don't think AMD has done enough to take advantage of this portable market segment.
They already should've been getting modern RDNA chips with FSR4 that are more battery-efficient for these handhelds by now.
They already should've been getting modern RDNA chips with FSR4 that are more battery-efficient for these handhelds by now.
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Tobimacoss
Member
Nvidia has the upcoming ARM64 N1X chips for Alienware 16" gaming laptops. Mediatek CPU partnership I think. So if it's good enough for a gaming laptop, could be scaled down to a Handheld.
They were supposed to announce at CES, not sure if it has happened today, but stay tuned in coming week.
Tobimacoss
Member
MSI is going to be extremely happy if they have the most powerful Windows Handhelds for 12-18 months. Their devices have the NPU also.
AMD is doing the whole Xbox co-engineered chips, so they skipped RDNA4 devices on purpose.
Mayar
Member
Everyone's so eager to get into the portable console market, but I think it's incredibly difficult to break into. Buyers have specific demands on portable consoles, and most of the space is already occupied by established brands. They need to offer a unique, desirable product that stands out from the rest of the market, but I honestly don't believe that's the case. It'll likely be another Windows portable PC powered by Intel chips, which doesn't make much sense in the current market context, and it's unlikely to allow them to enter and gain a foothold.
HerjansEagleFeeder
Member
Competition is always good
Sohurmk833
Member
Which makes no sense, the market is tiny.Everybody wants in on the Portable market right now
For Intel this would be away to R&D while getting money back & hopefully getting contracts for other handhelds'
Soodanim
Member
the idea of Intel trying again is good. Competition always benefits the consumer.
The idea of Intel making something efficient enough for handhelds is funny after they earned a reputation for just pumping more power into the same CPUs with no regard for heat or power consumption.
The idea of Intel making something efficient enough for handhelds is funny after they earned a reputation for just pumping more power into the same CPUs with no regard for heat or power consumption.
ZehDon
Gold Member
Keen to see it. Steam Deck made a believer out of me, and with console gaming ready to crash, whoever can bring a generational improvement over my Deck to market first gets my money.
NVidia's done the napkin math and realised gaming isn't worth their time. Right now, they can bring X amount of hardware to market. Gaming would bring them Y revenue while AI will bring them 3Y in revenue. Every piece of hardware they sell that isn't related to AI is losing them 2Y in theoretical revenue. Gaming is the worst way to spend their resources right now.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
More competition is always welcomed. Helps us get to the ideal device much quicker.
Fingers crossed they deliver.
Fingers crossed they deliver.
deriks
4-Time GIF/Meme God
Bombs away
TrebleShot
Member
Lunar Lake in the MSI Claw 8 AI plus is much much better than THE AMD Z2.
It's quieter, works better at lower power and performs better at higher wattages.
XESS is also much better than FSR 3 and XESS frame gen is better than FSR frame gen. They claim this is 82% better than lunar Lake which is absurd.
For instance this things can play most modern day games with some upscaling at 60fps at about 25watts at medium or high settings.
There is a real market there that is growing every day I see people posting that they've tried it and are blown away.
It's quieter, works better at lower power and performs better at higher wattages.
XESS is also much better than FSR 3 and XESS frame gen is better than FSR frame gen. They claim this is 82% better than lunar Lake which is absurd.
For instance this things can play most modern day games with some upscaling at 60fps at about 25watts at medium or high settings.
There is a real market there that is growing every day I see people posting that they've tried it and are blown away.
winjer
Member
That is true, but it has the disadvantage of adding more SKUs with different architectures.
One of the advantages of the Steam Deck is that Valve could focus on just one CPU and GPU archs. The same for console makers.
It's also one of the reasons why Windows is such a mess, with so many drivers.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Fire in the hole!
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I am down for more competition, but they have to overcome their biggest issue:
drivers.
drivers.
Everybody wants in on the Portable market right now
Intel is already the chipset provider for the MSI Claw handhelds since 2023.
I don't imagine AMD and Intel would have difficulty in releasing drivers for major chipsets.
The Strix Halo chips would certainly be hard to top as the most powerful Windows handheld chips.
'Platform', not handheld.
winjer
Member
The problem are not the drivers alone, but how they interact with all the APIs and translation layers in SteamOS.
Topher
Identifies as young
If they see enough of a market that enough money could be made then it doesn't matter. Can't look at this like we don consoles where price is set at the lowest possible level to achieve greater market share.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
You do know that Intel's current chipset for handhelds can meet/beat Z2E already, right? The latest MSI Claw is pretty good.
The issue has been drivers, pricing and availability.
SomeNorseGuy
Gold Member
Intel says Panther Lake offers Lunar Lake efficiency with Arrow Lake performance
The chipmaker wants its Core Ultra Series 3 to offer "the best of both worlds."
www.xda-developers.com
- Panther Lake unifies Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake: scalable 8/16-core CPUs with up to 12 Xe3 GPU cores.
- The Core Ultra Series 3 claims +60% multithreaded, +77% gaming speed, and up to 27 hours battery life.
- Xe3 Arc scales to 12 cores, approaching RTX 4050 laptop performance; NPU and battery life now consistent across lineup
SomeNorseGuy
Gold Member
Intel Panther Lake 30W Handhelds To Be Similar In Performance Versus Sony PS6 "Canis" Handheld at 15W
Intel Panther Lake SoCs Are All Set To Shake Things Up In The Handheld Segment, Should Compete Well Against Sony's PS6 Handheld Than AMDArticle: So as of right now, Intel's Panther Lake SoCs will have the best fighting chance against Sony's upcoming PS6 handheld codenamed Canis. According to Kepler_L2, the Intel Panther Lake handhelds will be able to compete or offer similar performance against the PS6 handheld. But there's a catch: Kepler states that the Intel Panther Lake handhelds will require 30W to match a 15W PS6 handheld. That's half the TDP & once again, most of this comes from the fact that Sony is running its own proprietary OS, and the chip is purely optimized for running games from its 1st party developers.
Now, this is a rumor, but we believe that with further optimizations, Intel Panther Lake gaming handhelds should also see good performance scaling at lower power once the platforms are out for a good while. It looks like Intel will have to work closely with Microsoft and its partners to really optimize the handheld gaming experience while keeping both performance and power factors in mind.
So yeah, really interesting that it isn't AMD but Intel that is being positioned as the best competition against Sony's PS6 handheld. Expect the first Intel Panther Lake gaming handhelds to roll out around mid-2026.
ZehDon
Gold Member
If Intel can match performance against dedicated gaming hardware, even for another 15W, while supplying a general purpose handheld PC, that would be really something.
Guardian Monkey
Member
Strix Halo is too fast? LOL wtf, so equal to 4050?!?
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
Zen 2 extreme was a disappointment. I'm curious about this.
Also that MSI Intel handheld seems like quite a good performer as it is.
Also that MSI Intel handheld seems like quite a good performer as it is.
Tobimacoss
Member
12 Xe3 Arc GPU cores? Isn't that a bit weak? Unless they really perform better than RDNA5 or that is just the base SKU.Intel says Panther Lake offers Lunar Lake efficiency with Arrow Lake performance
The chipmaker wants its Core Ultra Series 3 to offer "the best of both worlds."
- Panther Lake unifies Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake: scalable 8/16-core CPUs with up to 12 Xe3 GPU cores.
- The Core Ultra Series 3 claims +60% multithreaded, +77% gaming speed, and up to 27 hours battery life.
- Xe3 Arc scales to 12 cores, approaching RTX 4050 laptop performance; NPU and battery life now consistent across lineup
Canis will have 16 GPU cores, and next gen Xbox Ally X could have up to 24 CU.
So far we have 3 possible main contenders:
AMD RDNA5 for Xbox, Playstation, and Windows Handhelds, maybe Deck 2.
Intel Panther Lake for Windows Handhelds
Nvidia/Mediatek N1X ARM64 chips for Windows Handhelds
ZehDon
Gold Member
Steam Deck is the gold standard for me, and it's value point is simply unmatched. I'd gladly pay more for a generational leap, but no one's really managed to deliver one yet. I'm hoping Intel is up to the challenge, and I hope Microsoft finally remembers how to make good software.
Topher
Identifies as young
Been primarily AMD for PC gaming up till now. When is Nvidia supposed to launch their stuff?
Lots of folks feel that way especially since pricing with others has become insane.
uncreativename
Member
Doesn't sound too interesting for me, but I'm excited for Nova Lake (the next generation after Panther Lake, i assume?), which'll have avx512 support. it'll mean better performing games, once support becomes widespread (Alan Wake 2 was one of the first games to require AVX2, which has been in CPUs on PC at least for ages, and that game didn't even release that long ago), and of course that you'll have to buy a new cpu to run those games at all.
https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-confirms-avx10-2-512b-support-for-future-intel-core-series
https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-confirms-avx10-2-512b-support-for-future-intel-core-series
Tobimacoss
Member
It was supposed to be announced at CES the past week but was a No Show.
The 5 Biggest No-Shows of CES 2026
As the Consumer Electronics Show of 2026 comes to an end, our field crew has done of a lot of work to keep readers updated. However, pre-CES expectations were high for several product launches, that sadly didn't happen. In today's piece we are ranking the top five things we didn't get at CES...
It is meant to be used in Alienware 16" Gaming laptop first and foremost, but if it does well in a laptop, then I don't see why OEMs or Nvidia wouldn't want to use the chips scaled down for handhelds.
Better battery life with ARM64 plus Nvidia DLSS 4.5 are high on PC Gaming Handheld checklist.
Unless Qualcomm can beat Nvidia to the punch with Snapdragon X2 Elite handhelds.
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videogamedude
Member
gotta love this new handheld trend... anything that slows down the light speed transistor cluster fuck that's attacking our wallets
Time to optimize your games motherfuckers.
Time to optimize your games motherfuckers.
SportsFan581
Member
Did they mean a piece of hardware? Or just a platform (chip) designed specifically for that purpose?
They've been distancing themselves from hardware over the years, spinning off Nuc, dropping their line of motherboards, etc. The integrated graphics they've been showing off with 4050 level performance is impressive.
They've been distancing themselves from hardware over the years, spinning off Nuc, dropping their line of motherboards, etc. The integrated graphics they've been showing off with 4050 level performance is impressive.
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I would love for intel to throw their hat in the ring with a competitive offering, but the news coming after the NVidia buyout certainly didn't give much confidence in Intel continuing serious effort and investment in GPU R&D. With amd being lax as hell in the apu market fleecing consumers with insane prices for what were meant to be supposedly value offerings and being lazy and lax enough to still be offering rdna3.5 and frs3 until 2026, Intel has a unique opportunity to exploit an opening.
That being said from what we have seen Intel was still significantly behind in efficiency with Battlemage. Despite being on a more advanced node and a significantly larger die size the b570 offered similar power efficiency and performance. It has better memory and bandwidth which helps in scenarios since the rx7600 is severely bandwidth bottlenecked and the rt and ml pipeline was more advanced than rdna3 but basically AMD ignored that completely which was an idiotic move. Keep in mind rdna3 launched in 2022 and battlemage 2024 so not comparable generation wise. Currently they have an opportunity since AMD have shit the bed with the ancient rdna3.5 offerings until 2027 atleast but hearing the comparisons with rdna5 I am finding it hard to believe. By all accounts RDNA5 is a massive overhaul for AMD with overall performance/efficiency and feature set possibly superior to even Blackwell. Hearing Intel being able to make such ground as to offer PS6 portable level parity with their next offering just seems a bit too optimistic. Yes it is with double the TDP but even so with Sonys dedicated gaming machine ,OS and developer advantage realistically in comparable scenarios it would be significantly closer especially with intel's fledgling driver lifecycle.
That being said I am cheering like all hell for Intel. They are the last hope for consumers getting actual value in the GPU market.
That being said from what we have seen Intel was still significantly behind in efficiency with Battlemage. Despite being on a more advanced node and a significantly larger die size the b570 offered similar power efficiency and performance. It has better memory and bandwidth which helps in scenarios since the rx7600 is severely bandwidth bottlenecked and the rt and ml pipeline was more advanced than rdna3 but basically AMD ignored that completely which was an idiotic move. Keep in mind rdna3 launched in 2022 and battlemage 2024 so not comparable generation wise. Currently they have an opportunity since AMD have shit the bed with the ancient rdna3.5 offerings until 2027 atleast but hearing the comparisons with rdna5 I am finding it hard to believe. By all accounts RDNA5 is a massive overhaul for AMD with overall performance/efficiency and feature set possibly superior to even Blackwell. Hearing Intel being able to make such ground as to offer PS6 portable level parity with their next offering just seems a bit too optimistic. Yes it is with double the TDP but even so with Sonys dedicated gaming machine ,OS and developer advantage realistically in comparable scenarios it would be significantly closer especially with intel's fledgling driver lifecycle.
That being said I am cheering like all hell for Intel. They are the last hope for consumers getting actual value in the GPU market.
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The Fartist
Gold Member
I didn't give two fucks about handheld gaming until this past summer when I bought a Vita at a flea market. Since then I've accumulated a Steam Deck and a Switch 2. I get it now and I'm curious to see what Intel can do.
It was supposed to launch in 2024 lmao
Topher
Identifies as young
Cyberpunkd
Member
Their MSI Claw 8 AI+ is a really good handheld, they have a solid base to build from.