00:00Intel's Panther Lake mobile chips are finally here, and the headline news is that a fair
00:05few of the high-end models feature a new, much improved iGPU, the Intel Arc B390.
00:11It's a substantial graphics tile with 12 XE3 cores, dedicated ray tracing hardware,
00:16and some promises of much improved gaming performance.
00:22So how does this new iGPU perform in some of the most demanding games?
00:26Well, our testing data shows that, in Cyberpunk 2077, the little graphics cruncher is capable
00:32of an impressive 64fps average in the in-game benchmark, at 1080p medium settings with upscaling disabled.
00:39That's considerably faster than the 41fps average of AMD's 890m iGPU found in some of our favourite
00:46Strix Point mobile chips. And, it must be said, it's a whole lot faster than the 33fps average
00:52of the previous Arc iGPU.
00:57Turn on some XESS quality upscaling, however, and the benchmark average jumps to 94fps.
01:03In real-world gaming, that translates into excellent frame rates even in particularly demanding scenes,
01:09which is a remarkably impressive result to see in a laptop without a discrete graphics chip.
01:14As a quick note, we did have a little trouble getting the Intel chip to play nicely with our
01:18video capturing software, so the footage is a little crunchier than we'd like. In person,
01:23however, I can confirm that ultra-smooth gameplay is very much in the B390's wheelhouse.
01:31It's not all roses for the Arc B390 though, as notorious GPU pusher Blackmyth Wukong shows the
01:37limits of the Panther Lake iGPU without some upscaling assistance. We recorded a 39fps average in the
01:44benchmark with XESS turned off at 1080p medium settings. And, while it's still very playable at
01:50this frame rate, you'd still likely want to enable some upscaling to get the most out of it, which boosts
01:55the frames up into the high 50fps range. So, the Intel Arc B390 proves itself to be a very impressive
02:02performer compared to its most direct rivals, although it's still a long way behind the RTX 4050 mobile
02:08in most of our testing. And, while it delivers results that defy belief for a single laptop chip,
02:13I'd imagine that the top-end Intel iGPU will only appear in some of the more expensive, slim and
02:18sleek, productivity-style laptops. I'd say budget gaming machines likely have nothing to fear just
02:24yet, especially once you take into account the potential price difference. Still, the new Panther
02:29Lake chips have certainly put gaming performance front and centre, and that makes me hopeful for a
02:34future of truly mobile, truly gaming-capable portable machines, without a discrete GPU in sight.
02:40The real question, though, is whether we'll see handheld gaming PC manufacturers picking the new
02:46high-end Intel mobile chips for their internal hardware. It's certainly a good performer in our
02:51test laptop, but will the Intel Arc B390 iGPU eventually make a mockery of all other gaming
02:56handhelds when it comes to performance? Well, you'll have to watch this space to find out,
03:01but Intel says we should see something handheld-based, soon. Fingers crossed, eh?
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