With retail leaks revealing a new MSI Claw handheld slated to arrive soon with Intel's Arc G3 Extreme dedicated handheld CPU onboard, it's no surprise to see the CPU, and its Arc B380 iGPU, appear in early benchmarks. According to a recent PassMark run, the Intel Arc G3 Extreme will put up impressive numbers in terms of both CPU and GPU performance, with multicore CPU tests resulting in 29,622 points and single-core tests coming in at 4,288 points.

In comparison, the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme that has become ubiquitous in the handheld gaming space, manages 23,649 in multicore CPU testing and 3,964 points in single-core tests—just over 20% slower than Intel's upcoming chip. To be fair, the TDP of the 14-core Intel chip during the test is unknown, and performance at lower power has been one of Intel's weaknesses when it comes to gaming handhelds. GPU tests have not yet been recorded by PassMark, but the Arc B380 is slated to be built on the same 12-core Xe3 silicon with a minor 200 MHz decrease in GPU clock, so performance is expected to be quite similar to the Arc B390, which we tested to be significantly faster than AMD's Radeon 890M.

MSI's Claw line-up of gaming handhelds has gone from being overpriced and underperforming in the original Intel-powered Claw 8 A1M to being widely regarded as solid performers in both the new AMD- and Intel-powered variants. Now, however, an Italian retail listing on Ollo Store has tipped an updated version of the Intel-powered Claw handheld, this time appearing as the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ for a price of €1,599, which is €300 more than the current-gen Claw 8 AI+ A2VM with the same memory and storage specs on the same site.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the MSI Claw 8 AI+ A2VM can be found here]

The new Claw 8 EX AI+ will feature Intel's new Arc G3 Extreme CPU, which has been reported to be a 14-core (2× P-Core, 8× E-Core, 4× LPE-Core) CPU. The G3 Extreme's graphics will rely on the Intel Arc B380 iGPU, which is slated to have 12 Xe3 cores at 2.3 GHz. The only real difference between the B390 and the B380 is the GPU core clocks, which are 200 MHz lower on the B380, so performance shouldn't be too far off what we've seen on the flagship Intel Core Ultra X9 388H in our recent Intel Panther Lake review. The rest of the Claw 8 EX AI+ looks to be pretty standard fare for MSI's gaming handhelds these days, with 32 GB of RAM, an 8-inch, 16:10 IPS display with 500 nits of brightness and 100% sRGB coverage, an 80 WHr battery, Wi-Fi 7, and an included carrying case.

Intel's Core Ultra 7 270K Plus was recently leaked in an upcoming HP prebuilt desktop PC, ostensibly once more confirming the imminent launch of the new Arrow Lake Refresh desktop CPUs. Now, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has appeared in PassMark's benchmark charts, potentially both confirming the specifications of the mid-range Arrow Lake Refresh and setting expectations of performance for the new CPUs. According to PassMark, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus scored 50,478 points in the CPU benchmark, coming out around 16% faster than the 14-core Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 5 245 KF that preceded it.

That benchmark score, although based on a single benchmark, puts the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus almost exactly halfway between the Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 7 265K, which is not a terrible place to be. According to previous leaks, now somewhat validated by this benchmark score, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus will add four additional E-cores over the original 14-core Core Ultra 5 245 CPUs, for a total of 18 cores and 18 threads—6 P-cores and 12 E-cores.

In an exclusive report for VideoCardz, Intel is reportedly targeting an LPDDR5X memory speed of 8,533 MT/s for its upcoming Core Ultra G3 series of "Panther Lake" chips arriving in the second quarter for handheld gaming devices. After we learned that Intel is imposing certain memory mandates on its OEM partners, it seems like the Core Ultra G3 will face similar mandates from the company to prevent OEMs from "cutting corners" and implementing slower LPDDR5X memory. For the new handheld-tuned Core Ultra G3 and G3 Extreme, that specification is now set to 8,533 MT/s, which is slightly below its flagship "Panther Lake" Core Ultra X SKUs that can support LPDDR5X memory running at 9,600 MT/s.

Presumably, Intel will require OEM partners and makers of the next-generation handheld consoles to use this 8,533 MT/s memory on both SKUs. These chips will feature a 14-core CPU configuration, including two P-Cores, eight E-Cores, and four LPE-Cores. A key selling point of these SoCs is the Arc integrated graphics, with the G3 Extreme offering 12 Xe3 cores and the standard G3 featuring 10 Xe3 cores. The G3 Extreme plans to run the Arc B380 iGPU with 12 Xe3 cores at 2.3 GHz, just 200 MHz below the flagship Core Ultra X9 388H's Arc B390. Essentially, G3 Extreme handhelds can expect gaming performance similar to that of the flagship SKU, albeit with two fewer P-Cores and a slightly lower GPU clock speed. The regular G3 maintains its CPU capabilities, but the GPU is reduced to a 10-core Xe3 IP called Arc B360, with a GPU boost frequency of 2.2 GHz, resulting in a notable decrease in both gaming performance and TDP.

When Intel unveiled its "Panther Lake" Core Ultra Series 3 mobile processors built on the 18A node, the company announced that a separate version fine-tuned for handheld gaming consoles is in the works. Called Intel Core Ultra G3 "Panther Lake," the chip is now scheduled to arrive in the second quarter of 2026, according to Golden Pig Upgrade. The company plans to bring two SKUs to the masses, which will be called G3 and G3 Extreme, each carrying a 14-core CPU configuration consisting of two P-Cores, eight E-Cores, and four additional LPE-Cores. However, the real star of the show of this SoC will be the Arc integrated graphics, which will arrive with 12 Xe3 cores in the G3 Extreme, or 10 Xe3 cores in the regular G3.

For the G3 Extreme, the plan is to run the Arc B380 iGPU with 12 Xe3 cores at 2.3 GHz, which is just 200 MHz shy of the flagship Core Ultra X9 388H's Arc B390. Basically, G3 Extreme handhelds can expect similar gaming performance to what we observed in our review of the flagship SKU, just with two P-Cores less and a slightly lower GPU clock. For the regular G3, the CPU configuration retains its capability, but the GPU drops to a 10-Core Xe3 IP called Arc B360. This integrated graphics drops core counts and GPU boost frequency to 2.2 GHz, which will result in a significant reduction in both gaming performance and TDP. Intel still hasn't revealed plans about TDP configurations, so we have to wait a bit longer for that.

An early PassMark entry posted on X by the account "X86 is dead&back" offers a glimpse of Intel's Core Ultra 5 245HX notebook processor. The 14-core "Arrow Lake-H" mobile chip quietly outpaced its desktop counterpart, the Core Ultra 5 245, in both single-core and multi-core tests. The numbers themselves are straightforward. The 245HX recorded 4,706 points in single-core and 41,045 points in multi-core runs. By comparison, the desktop Core Ultra 5 245 logged 4,409 and 37,930, respectively, handing the notebook silicon a 7% lead in single-core results and an 8% advantage when all cores are engaged. Against the Core i5-14500, the 245HX is 19% faster in single-core work and 30% faster in heavily threaded tasks.

The gap widens further versus last year's mobile i5-14500HX, where the newcomer enjoys a 30% single-core margin and a 41% multi-core edge. The explanation is partly thermal. Intel grants the 245HX a maximum turbo power envelope of 160 W, well above the 121 W ceiling of the desktop 245. Clock speeds peak at 5.1 GHz, and the core configuration remains identical, pairing six performance cores with eight efficient cores. The higher TDP gives the HX version a chance to run at higher clocks for longer. Notebook manufacturers are expected to reveal Arrow Lake-HX systems later this quarter. Real-world gaming is a different arena, and PassMark is only one ruler. Yet the signs are hard to ignore: a mid-range laptop processor now outworks desktop counterparts.

Mini PCs that prioritize performance over anything else are far from hard to find. Most such systems opt for high-end laptop chips instead of desktop ones, which is to be expected considering that there is quite a lot of overlap in terms of thermal expectations between the two segments - in other words, both have to deal with limited thermal headroom. The newly launched K10 mini PC from the well-known brand GMKtec is no exception, and packs the Intel Core i9-13900HK CPU paired with up to 96 GB of memory. Pricing details are under wraps as of this writing, and the system is available for pre-order in China. A global release in not in sight, although GMKtec does like to bring many of its products to the global market.

The 14-core, 20-thread Core i9-13900HK CPU may be over two years old at this point, but is far from a slouch. With performance that is almost neck-and-neck with the Core Ultra 9 185H, the high-end Raptor Lake-H is more than sufficient for the vast majority of intensive workloads that one might throw its way. Dual SODIMM slots are present, which can accommodate up to 96 GB of DDR5-5200 memory, Moreover, the K10 sports a whopping three M.2 2280 slots, which allows the system to pack up to 12 TB of solid-state storage. A pretty decent cooling system is also present, the performance of which, however, can only be established once independent reviews arrive.

ORIGIN PC, a leader in custom high-performance systems, today announced the launch of its latest EON16-SL and NSL-16 laptops. Honing in towards improved portability, access 40-Series performance with a spacious 16" 240 Hz 2560 x 1600 display on a laptop only 0.71 inches thin while 4.19 pounds light. Gamers and professionals can customize a system powered by modern, reliable hardware while also backed by ORIGIN PC's 24/7 US-based support team. Bring portable gaming performance on-the-go with an EON16-SL or complete your work anywhere with an NSL-16.

ORIGIN PC's new EON16-SL pushes lightweight laptop gaming further than ever. It is designed with an Intel Core i9-13900H 14-core processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, and can be customized with up to 64 GB of DDR5 DRAM as well as 16 TB of high-speed storage. Run all the latest games with impressive frame rates, and make use of the massive storage capacity to hold all of your favorites. If you need any software for streaming or content creation, the EON16-SL can easily hold it all.

Intel's 13th Gen Core i5 "Raptor Lake" desktop processor lineup could see the top Core i5-13600K and i5-13600KF feature a 6P+8E core-configuration (that's six performance cores and eight efficiency cores). Each of the six P-cores has HyperThreading enabled, making this a 14-core/20-thread processor. Each of the six "Raptor Cove" P-cores has 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache. The eight "Gracemont" E-cores are spread across two E-core clusters with four cores, each. Each cluster shares 4 MB of L2 cache among the four E-cores (increased from 2 MB per cluster on "Alder Lake"). The P-cores and E-cores share 24 MB of L3 cache, increased from 20 MB on the i5-12600K.

A qualification sample (QS) of the Core i5-13600K made its way to social media, where it was put through a bunch of synthetic tests. In CPU-Z Bench, the i5-13600K QS scores 830 points in single-thread, compared to 648 points of the Ryzen 9 5950X "Zen 3," and trails it in the multi-threaded tests, with 10031.8 points, compared to 11906 points for the Ryzen. The QS comes with a Processor Base Power (PBP) value of 125 W, same as that of the i5-12600K. "Raptor Lake" is backwards compatible with Intel 600-series chipset motherboards, although it launches alongside the Intel 700-series chipset. It shares the LGA1700 socket with 12th Gen "Alder Lake," and is built on the same Intel 7 node (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin) as its predecessor.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers (Hong Kong Stock Code: 1337), is kicking off 2022 with new Razer Blade gaming laptop models including the Razer Blade 14, Razer Blade 15, and Razer Blade 17. The world's fastest laptops for gamers and creators are equipped with the recently announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Laptop GPUs, up to an RTX 3080 Ti, making the new Blades better than ever, now shipping with Windows 11. All new Razer Blade gaming laptops now also include groundbreaking DDR5 memory, providing blistering clock speeds up to 4800 MHz, an increase in frequency by up to 50% compared to the previous generation.

"The Razer Blade series continues to be the best gaming laptop by providing desktop-class performance on-the-go," says Travis Furst, Senior Director of Razer's Systems business unit. "Additionally, we've enabled creators to work anywhere with gorgeous displays, available NVIDIA Studio drivers, and up to 14-Core CPUs. Users will have the ability to choose any model or configuration that best fits their gaming or creating needs, while getting the latest and greatest in graphics, memory and processing technology."

An Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-P" sample surfaced on the Geekbench online results database. The "Alder Lake" microarchitecture introduces heterogenous multi-core to the desktop platform, following its long march from Arm big.LITTLE in 2013, through to laptops with Intel's "Lakefield" in 2019. Intel will build both desktop- and mobile processors using the microarchitecture. The concept is unchanged from big.LITTLE. A processor has two kinds of cores—performance and low-power. Under lower processing loads, the low-power cores are engaged, and the performance cores are only woken up as needed. In theory, this brings about tremendous energy-efficiency gains, as the low-power cores operate within a much higher performance/Watt band than the high-performance cores.

The "Alder Lake" silicon features two kinds of cores—eight "Golden Cove" performance cores, and eight "Gracemont" low-power cores. The "Golden Cove" cores can be configured with HyperThreading (2 logical processors per core). Intel's product managers can create multiple combinations of performance and low-power cores, to achieve total core counts of up to 16, and logical processor counts of up to 24. This also warrants close attention to the composition of the core types, beyond an abstract core-count. A 14-core processor with 6 performance- and 8 low-power cores will perform vastly different from a 14-core processor with 8 performance- and 6 low-power cores. One way to derive core counts is by paying attention to the logical processor (thread) counts, as only the performance "Golden Cove" cores support HTT.

Ahead of their October 7th product launch and November availability, we have confirmation of the specifications and pricing of Intel's 10th generation Core X "Cascade Lake-X" HEDT processors in the LGA2066 package. These chips feature compatibility with existing socket LGA2066 motherboards with a UEFI BIOS update, although several motherboard manufacturers are launching new products with some of the latest connectivity options, such as 2.5 GbE wired Ethernet, and 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 WLAN.

The 10th generation Core X HEDT processor family is based on the new 14 nm++ "Cascade Lake" silicon, which comes with hardware fixes against several classes side-channel vulnerabilities, and introduces an updated instruction-set that includes more AVX-512 instructions, and the new DLBoost instruction. DLBoost leverages new fixed-function hardware on silicon to accelerate AI deep-learning neural-set building and training by up to 5 times. Intel's first wave of 10th gen Core X lineup is rather slim, with just four processor models. The company did away with the Core i7 brand extension, as core-counts in the mainstream desktop segment have already reached 8-core. The lineup now begins at 10-core/20-thread, with the chip's full 48-lane PCI-Express and 4-channel DDR4 interfaces enabled across the board. All models feature the "XE" brand extension, and feature unlocked base-clock multipliers.

October 7 promises to be an action-packed day, with not just AMD's launch of its Radeon RX 5500 series graphics card, but also Intel's 10th generation Core X "Cascade Lake" HEDT processors in the LGA2066 package. With AMD having achieved near-parity with Intel on IPC, the focus with the 10th generation Core X will be on price-performance, delivering double the number of cores to the Dollar compared to the previous generation. Intel will nearly halve the "Dollars per core" metric of these processors down to roughly $57 per core compared to $103 per core of the 9th generation Core X. This means the 10-core/20-thread model that the series starts with, will be priced under $600.

The first wave of these processors will include the 10-core/20-thread Core i9-10900XE, followed by the 12-core/24-thread i9-10920XE around the $700-mark, the 14-core/28-thread i9-10940XE around the $800-mark, and the range-topping 18-core/28-thread i9-10960XE at $999, nearly half that of the previous-generation i9-9980XE. There is a curious lack of a 16-core model. These chips feature a 44-lane PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex, a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface supporting up to 256 GB of DDR4-2933 memory (native speed), and compatibility with existing socket LGA2066 motherboards with a BIOS update. The chips also feature an updated AES-512 ISA, the new DLBoost instruction set with a fixed-function hardware that accelerates neural net training by 5 times, and an updated Turbo Boost Max algorithm. Intel will extensively market these chips to creators and PC enthusiasts. October 7 will see a paper-launch, followed by November market-availability.

In a sign of just how arid the DIY retail channel has become for Intel, Tom's Hardware reports that the new socket flagship LGA2066 HEDT processor model Intel sneaked into its product-stack, the Core i9-9990XE, is restricted to the OEM/SI (system integrator) channel. Even to OEMs, ordering a tray of i9-9990XE chips isn't as simple as ordering other chips, such as the i9-9900K. Apparently, Intel has been running secret online auctions that are OEM-only, for these chips. OEMs get to bid on the per-chip price in n-unit tray quantities.

Workstation integrator Puget Systems was able to score itself some i9-9990XE inventory at USD $2,300 per chip. Puget Systems last week received its first batch of chips from Intel, and released performance benchmarks. At this price, the i9-9990XE is being sold at a 21% premium over the retail-channel SEP price of the i9-9980XE, and a whopping 65% premium over the i9-9940X. Intel can't shake off comparisons between the i9-9990XE and the i9-9940X because both chips are 14-core/28-thread with 19.25 MB shared L3 cache, with the i9-9990XE only offering significantly higher clock-speeds, but at an astounding TDP of 255W. The i9-9990XE was shown beating the 18-core i9-9980XE in a variety of HEDT-relevant benchmarks.

Intel is giving final touches to a new socket LGA2066 high-end desktop processor with an interesting model number for its specifications. The new Core i9-9990XE is positioned above the current flagship i9-9980XE. Normally you'd expect it to be the same 18-core "Skylake-X" chip with a speed-bump, however, the i9-9990XE is a unique proposition. It sheds cores in favor of significantly higher clock-speeds than the i9-9980XE.

The i9-9990XE is a 14-core/28-thread processor, based on a binned "Skylake-X" HCC (high core count) die, and uses STIM (soldered thermal interface material) between the die and integrated heatspreader (IHS). It features some aggressive clock-speeds, with 4.00 GHz nominal clock-speeds, and a massive 5.10 GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency that beats even the Core i9-9900K. Besides 14 cores, the i9-9990XE is configured with 19.25 MB of shared L3 cache, and 1 MB of L2 cache per core. The four disabled cores alone don't help Intel's efforts to dial up clock-speeds. Intel has increased the chip's rated TDP all the way up to 255 Watts!