Intel Panther Lake gaming handhelds could challenge AMD in this growing market

Intel's Panther Lake or Intel Core Ultra (Series 3) processors for laptops and handhelds are on the way, powered by the company's most advanced chip technology to date - Intel 18A. Intel notes that with improved performance and efficiency, Panther Lake will be able to deliver Lunar Lake levels of power efficiency with Arrow Lake-like performance.

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Looking at the GPU side, which will be powered by Arc Graphics and the latest generation of Xe3 graphics, Panther Lake's top-end chip with 12 Xe Cores will reportedly deliver a 50% or 1.5X improvement over Lunar Lake with better support for ray-tracing, with Intel XeSS delivering its version of Multi Frame Generation optimized for portable devices.

With a reported 40% increase in performance-per-watt compared to Arrow Lake, and more Xe Cores to play with (Arrow Lake handhelds like the MSI Claw 8 AI+ feature a processor with 8 Xe Cores), the prospect of a high-end PC gaming handheld powered by Panther Lake and AI rendering could present a real alternative to AMD-powered handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally X and Legion Go 2.

• Read more: Intel's next-gen Panther Lake CPUs launching at CES 2026, available in Q1 2026
• Read more: Intel's latest Arc graphics driver boosts performance on all mobile Lunar Lake devices
• Read more: MSI Claw 8 is the first Windows 11 gaming handheld with Intel's new Lunar Lake 'Battlemage' GPU

In the growing PC gaming handheld market, spearheaded by the success of Valve's Steam Deck, most options currently available have an AMD Ryzen processor with integrated Radeon graphics. Unlike the discrete GPU market for desktop PCs and laptops, which is dominated by NVIDIA and GeForce RTX products, AMD is the clear winner in this new space. With the arrival of its long-awaited Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor, there doesn't seem to be too much in the way of competition.

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However, beyond the broad compatibility with countless games and developers now optimizing their releases for portable handhelds like the Steam Deck, there are areas that AMD still needs to address. One of those is power efficiency and maintaining a higher level of performance when running in low-power modes, operating in the range of 15-20W. The second, and equally important area, is AI rendering in the form of upscaling and frame generation, as the current FSR solutions aren't quite up to the task.

Of course, anything Intel-related right now feels like an uphill battle when it comes to reclaiming market share or consumer goodwill. Panther Lake does sound like it could be just what the PC gaming handheld space needs to enhance both performance and visual fidelity.

With improved power efficiency, these new Intel gaming handhelds should easily outperform their AMD counterparts in gaming at the all-important lower power modes, while also offering enhanced image fidelity through AI-powered upscaling and Multi Frame Generation. Sure, Multi Frame Generation is something some gamers consider to be the rendering equivalent of a hate crime. Still, it's one of those things where once you experience a well-implemented version, it's a game-changer. And for a PC gaming handheld, achieving 200+ FPS in a game with minimal latency impact would be precisely that. So now we simply wait until we get our first look at a Panther Lake-powered PC gaming handheld.