Arc G3 Extreme and Arc G3 slated to arrive as Intel’s newest handheld console chips

Shortly after Intel showed off the entire Panther Lake lineup, a leak talked about two chips that didn't make the cut: the Core G3 and Core G3 Extreme. As implied by their rather unconventional naming, they were slated to be Intel's answer to the Ryzen Z2 series of chips from AMD. However, their launch was pushed back for unspecified reasons, and now, one of them has just shown up online.

X leaker @9550Pro has posted a CPU-Z screenshot that appears to show the Intel Core G3 Extreme. As foretold by earlier leaks, it comes with 14 CPU cores in total: 2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LPE-cores. It is unlike any Panther Lake chip and appears to be a cut-down variant of the Core Ultra X7 358H with fewer P-cores, likely to keep power consumption in check. The chip is shown to have a boost clock of 4.7 GHz and 18 MB of L3 cache.

Is it really a Core G3 Extreme, though?

However, Jaykihn, a well-known insider with a solid track record of Intel-related leaks, calls the listing fake, stating that the Core G3 Extreme is actually called the Intel Arc G3 Extreme. Furthermore, the Arc G3 Extreme reportedly has a boost clock of 4.7 GHz and only 12 MB of L3 cache. Jaykihn states the above listing is a spoofed Core Ultra X7 358H.

The primary difference between the Intel Arc G3 Extreme and Arc G3 is said to lie in their iGPUs, with the Extreme-branded SKU tipped to feature an Arc B380 with 12 Xe cores. On the other hand, the non-extreme variant is slated to feature an Arc B360 with 10 Xe cores.

Overall, the differences between the two chips appear to be minimal, and given what we know about Panther Lake so far, they could pose a serious threat to AMD's Ryzen Z2 lineup. Intel is expected to show off the Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme sometime in Q2 2026.

Exactly what handhelds it will power remains mysterious. The MSI Claw seems like a plausible candidate because the last Intel chip powering it was based on the Lunar Lake platform. Furthermore, it will be a perfect platform to pit Intel and AMD hardware against each other now that the Ryzen Z2 Extreme-powered MSI Claw has been around for a while.