AMD might personal the hand-held PC gaming market, however Intel has plans to steal it again with its Core Extremely Collection 3 chip, or Panther Lake. Intel plans to launch a model of Panther Lake later this 12 months particularly for handhelds, executives informed PCWorld.com.
AMD’s processors with built-in graphics energy the overwhelming majority of handheld PCs, a distinct segment market that has shortly grown as players sought cheaper gaming options that they might additionally tackle the go.
Intel’s earlier processors have proven up in handheld gaming PCs earlier than; in 2024, Intel’s Core Extremely Collection 2 (Lunar Lake) was revealed in a handheld earlier than Computex. However Intel’s chip did not make a dent.
Partially, that was as a result of the hand-held gaming market was in its infancy, Nish Neelalojanan, senior director of product administration for consumer for Intel, informed me in an interview at CES 2026. As we speak, a few of the groundwork has been laid, similar to Microsoft enabling a unified full-screen interface for the gaming market.
However as we speak’s Panther Lake chips have a bonus, Neelalojanan stated: a return to the low-power E-cores that initially debuted in Intel’s first-generation Core Extremely chips and have been handed over within the second-generation Lunar Lake. “We expect that the low energy E-cores are significantly acceptable for gaming,” he stated.
AMD has loved success in handhelds as a result of it has persistently powered sport consoles, whose systems-on-a-chip are comparable in idea to the SOCs inside handhelds. The ROG Xbox Ally and Lenovo Legion Go each use AMD processors, particularly the Z1 and Z2 chips.
However Neelalojanan additionally had some blunt phrases concerning AMD within the handheld gaming market: “They’re promoting historical silicon, whereas we’re promoting up-to-date processors particularly designed for this market.” Or shall be promoting, anyway.
With the launch of the Core Extremely Collection 3 chip, Intel just lately sanitized its record of processors, eliminating most of the single-letter suffixes that have been a staple of its product listings. Somewhat than merely take an current Panther Lake chip and provides it to handheld clients, Neelalojanan stated that there shall be a customized by-product optimized for the market.
Will there be a brand new Intrel handheld model, although, or a brand new household of processors? “You’ll have to attend and see,” Neelalojanan stated.
