Things continue to heat up in the portable game console market. Performance tests of the Arc G3 Extreme model, which Intel is preparing to launch soon and is claimed to be the fastest processor in this field, has been leaked.

The resulting PassMark data shows that the new chip surpasses its biggest rival, AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, by a significant margin.

14-Core Structure and Powerful B390 Graphics Unit

Arc G3 Extreme, which was recently listed in online retailers with the MSI Claw 8 EX AI + console, is now available with its technical details. This model, which has 14 cores and 14 threads on the processor side, offers a 2+8+4 core arrangement that we have not seen before in the Panther Lake family.

While two of these cores are performance (P) oriented based on the Panther Cove architecture, the rest consist of efficiency (E) cores with the Darkmont architecture. The chip, which has a base clock speed of 3.70 GHz and an increased frequency of 4.60 GHz, has 12 MB L3 and 18 MB L2 cache capacity.

On the graphics side of the matter, Intel gets its power from the Arc B390 integrated graphics unit (iGPU). This unit contains 12 Xe3 cores; It promises ideal performance for portable devices with XeSS 3 technology and variable VRAM capacity support. The standard Arc G3 versions without the “Extreme” tag are expected to come with the Arc B370 graphics unit, possibly carrying 8 Xe3 cores.

Outperforms AMD in Benchmark Tests

According to the leaked PassMark results, Intel Arc G3 Extreme achieves 29,622 points in multi-core tests and 4,288 points in single-core tests. These values, which measure only processor (CPU) performance, reveal that the chip is 25 percent faster in multi-core and 8 percent faster in single-core against AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme. It is noteworthy that the performance is at similar levels with the 12-core Core Ultra 5 338H with 25W power consumption. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the G3 Extreme model operates at lower power consumption limits specific to handheld consoles, such as 15W-30W.

Expectations on the graphics performance side are much more ambitious. It is stated that the new structure will offer a performance increase of over 50 percent compared to the current Arc 140V and AMD’s popular Radeon 890M graphics units on the market. Considering that AMD’s new hardware update for handheld consoles is not expected until the first half of 2027, Intel has the opportunity to seriously increase its market share in this segment.

Price Expectations and Competition in the Market

In this period when memory and storage unit costs are at the highest levels in history, the prices of new generation hardware are also a matter of curiosity. It is known that in recent listings, the MSI Claw 8 model using Arc G3 Extreme appears with a very high price tag of 1599 Euros (over $1500).

However, industry expectations are that Extreme-equipped devices will eventually reach the end user in the $1000 range, while standard G3-equipped consoles will meet the end user in the $500-600 range.

What do you think about Intel’s new move in the portable console market? Don’t forget to express your thoughts in the comments section below.