At CES 2026, Intel spent a good chunk of its time showing off its latest progress in integrated graphics, a segment of the market that is already fiercely competitive. The spotlight fell on the Core Ultra 3 Series processors (codenamed Panther Lake) and their flagship integrated GPU (iGPU), the Arc B390. According to the officially published figures, Intel says its new graphics solution doesn't just beat AMD's best low-power competitor, it "crushes" it. Backed by that performance, Intel also confirmed ambitious plans to build a new handheld platform together with several well-known manufacturers.
How the Intel Arc B390 Performs Against AMD
Based on benchmark results supplied by Intel itself, the new Core Ultra X9 388H, equipped with the Arc B390 iGPU, showed remarkable strength. Specifically, it is about 73% faster on average than AMD's Ryzen AI HX 370. For context, AMD's Strix Point chip uses Radeon 890M integrated graphics, which has been regarded as the gold standard for onboard graphics in recent times. Intel also claims its new chips outperform the competition in ray tracing, frame generation and other graphically demanding workloads.
Intel's test results represent an average across 45 games at 1080p (upscaled from 540p). One notable point is the difference in power consumption: while AMD's chip draws up to 53W, Intel's processor is capped at 45W and still delivers higher performance. At native 1080p, the average performance gap widens even further, to 82%, a truly impressive figure.
In real-world play, hardware-hungry titles such as Assassin's Creed Shadows and Black Myth: Wukong both reached playable frame rates, ranging from 30 to 40 fps. Meanwhile, lighter eSports titles such as League of Legends and Rocket League came close to 300 fps without relying on frame generation. Intel also stressed that its upcoming XeSS 3 upscaling technology will further improve AI-based upscaling for laptops and handhelds. For the first time, multi-frame generation will come to mobile hardware, allowing up to three AI-generated frames to be inserted between traditionally rendered frames, similar to DLSS 4 on desktop PCs.
The Xe3 Graphics Architecture and Intel's Handheld Gaming Ambitions
The Arc B390 gets its power from 12 Xe cores built on Intel's latest Xe3 Arc Battlemage architecture. On the other side of the battle, AMD also launched its Ryzen AI 400 series at CES this week, but its new mobile chips still reuse the same iGPU found in the older Ryzen AI 300 series. AMD also gave a brief preview of the next generation of Strix Halo, a large-scale APU line that lifts mobile CPUs and GPUs into a new weight class approaching PlayStation 5 performance, but the only handheld currently using it is the GPD Win 5, which costs as much as 2,000 USD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlIlFt2Fj1c
Although Intel's gaming presentation centered mainly on laptops, the company also signaled broader ambitions for the handheld gaming PC market. One slide confirmed strategic partnerships with Microsoft, MSI, Acer, GPD, OneXPlayer and several other companies. Notably, though, Asus's logo was mysteriously absent from the list.
Intel's benchmarks appear aimed squarely at the Radeon 890M, the chip powering recent handhelds such as the Asus ROG Ally X, the MSI Claw A8 and the 2025 version of the GPD Win 4. Although the numbers are impressive, experts still have some lingering questions about input latency when using frame generation, and about how well the Arc B390 will really perform in handhelds, which typically operate within a low power envelope of 15-30W. We will need more time to verify the claims once commercial products officially reach users.
