Ever since Intel Panther Lake launched back at CES 2026, we’ve known that Team Blue’s latest mobile chips were coming to handhelds. And, ahead of Computex 2026, Intel has announced the G3 Extreme, which should be powering some of the best handheld gaming PCs this year.
The G3 Extreme is the star of the show, rocking 14 CPU cores and the same 12-core Arc B390 GPU found in the Asus ZenBook Duo I reviewed earlier this year. While these handheld chips will have lower clocks at 2.3GHz, compared to 2.5GHz, the G3 Extreme should be able to play most AAA games at low to medium settings while also being able to hit 60+ fps.
Intel is also taking a page out of AMD’s playbook and releasing a less-powerful Arc G3. This chip will have the same CPU configuration as the G3 Extreme, but will have a much less powerful GPU, with a 10-core Arc B370 clocked at 2.2GHz. It’s too early to know exactly how that will perform, but it should be about 10-20% slower than the G3 Extreme.
The G3 Extreme should start making their way to handheld gaming PCs over the next few months. For instance, the Acer Predator Atlas 8 will feature the G3 Extreme, along with 24GB of RAM, a 1200p display and a 1TB SSD. Acer hasn’t shared the price for its handheld yet, but on the heels of the Steam Deck price increase, it’s probably going to be quite pricey.
Another ‘Next Generation’
Back at CES 2025, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme was promised to power the next generation of handheld gaming PCs. And while the Xbox Ally X and the Legion Go 2, both powered by that AMD chip, were fantastic, they didn’t do much to move the needle on gaming performance. Hopefully these Panther Lake chips can shake things up a bit.
Intel actually has a decent shot at doing just that. Unlike the Z-series processors, which have all been using years-old graphics architectures, the G3 Extreme is using a modified Panther Lake chip. I won’t know what that means for raw performance until I can benchmark it, but if anything, this new architecture will be huge for battery life.
After all, one of the biggest problems with handheld gaming PCs is starting up a game, only to have it die after an hour and a half. If the Panther Lake laptops I’ve used are any indication, these new handhelds should have much better battery life.
Intel has also put a ton of work into its software over the last couple years. Just like its laptops, these upcoming handhelds will support XeSS multi-frame generation. Frame generation still isn’t a good substitute for base performance, but these handhelds keep coming out with fast displays – Acer’s G3 handheld has a 120Hz refresh rate, after all. Multi-frame generation might actually let the G3 Extreme hit those high frame rates in games that aren’t retro rogue-likes.
It’s too early to tell just how well this new crop of handheld gaming PCs will perform, but I will be getting them in the lab soon. And I can’t wait to see just what they’re capable of. Hopefully we actually get that next generation bump we’ve been waiting for – that might mean the Steam Deck 2 is closer than we think.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
