AMD's big ARC problem is demonstrated by this HP laptop

2025, we had the battle of Intel Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake versus AMD Krackan Point and Strix Point. And in 2026, it is Intel Panther Lake versus AMD Gorgon Point. In both cases, AMD does well, with strong CPU performance, despite Gorgon Point being merely a refresh of the earlier chips with the same Zen5 CPU cores.

However, there is one weak-point: GPUs. Intel has massively upped its iGPU game, with the Panther Lake Core Ultra X7 and X9 chips and the ARC B390 iGPU. Meanwhile, on the AMD-side, there is a stand-still, RNDA 3+ still has to hang on.

For the most part, this is fine: In the low end, AMD Radeon solutions like the AMD Radeon 860M can still compete with the basic Intel Panther Lake iGPUs. And Intel does not even have a competitor for Strix Halo in terms of GPU performance, even Panther Lake can not compete.

However, AMD has a weak-point, namely the mid-range segment, the former Strix Point territory. A laptops we recently reviewed that demonstrates this is the HP ZBook 8 G2a 14. This entry-level workstation laptops features the AMD Ryzen 9 HX 470, a strong CPU in its own right that compares well against Intel Panther Lake. However, it is paired with the AMD Radeon 890M - by now a pretty weak iGPU solution that launched in 2024, which is not even close to comparing with the ARC iGPU solutions. Our benchmarks show this: The ARC B390 is around 65 percent faster, and it is featured in competing laptops to the ZBook 8 G2a 14 - even in HP's own ZBook 8 G2i 14, the Intel variant.

Do not misunderstand us: AMD still has strong products, and Strix Halo is amazing. However, its availability is very limited, and the other AMD CPUs are in desperate need of stronger iGPU solutions at this point.