Intel is making a strategic push to dominate the increasingly competitive handheld gaming market.
During CES 2026, Intel revealed it is developing a dedicated gaming ecosystem for portable consoles, built upon the foundation of its next-generation Panther Lake architecture.
An exclusive report from IGN suggests the company is preparing custom Intel Core G3 processors specifically optimized for handheld hardware. These specialized chips are projected to outperform the Arc B390 integrated graphics showcased at the event. Intel’s benchmarks indicate that at a 45W power limit, the B390 already leads the mobile RTX 4050 by 10%, the Radeon 890M by 82%, and delivers 2.6 times the performance of the Snapdragon X Elite’s Adreno X1.
The shift to the advanced Intel 18A manufacturing process provides the technical flexibility needed to reconfigure chip designs, allowing Intel to allocate significantly more resources to integrated graphics performance.
Dan Rogers, a senior executive at Intel, stated that further details regarding the platform will be disclosed later this year as development continues alongside key hardware and software partners. The current list of collaborators includes industry giants such as MSI, Acer, Foxconn, Pegatron, Microsoft, and CPD.
Intel’s earlier attempt to penetrate the handheld sector centered on the Lunar Lake-based MSI Claw 8 AI+. While that device showed promise in the vital 17W efficiency range, it ultimately struggled to match AMD’s established dominance. With the arrival of Panther Lake and the new Core G3 series, Intel intends to go head-to-head with both AMD and Qualcomm, as the latter prepares its own assault on the Windows handheld gaming space.
Source: iXBT.games