Intel's next budget handheld chip leaked, and it's looking decent

A new leak from reliable Intel leaker Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) points to a Panther Lake handheld chip with a 4P+0E+4LP-E CPU cluster, paired with a 4-Xe3-core iGPU. That's a notably leaner setup than the Arc G3 / G3 Extreme handheld chips in the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, which use a 2P+8E+4LP-E CPU alongside 10 or 12 Xe3 cores, depending on the SKU.

This split isn't new. It lines up with top-end Panther Lake-U SKUs, which also topped out at 4 P-cores, 4 LP-E cores, and a 4-Xe3-core iGPU. If that's the silicon powering this handheld variant, it suggests Intel or an OEM partner is making a lower-power, likely thinner, lighter, and cheaper handheld tier that sits below the Claw's G3-based chips.

Clocks for the handheld part itself haven't leaked, but the 4P+0E+4LP-E CPU and 4-Xe3-core iGPU configuration is already shipping. The Core Ultra 7 355 and Core Ultra 5 325 (Panther Lake-U) are out now in the Dell XPS 14 and XPS 16, and we've already benchmarked both, giving us a rough sense of what performance to expect from the new handheld chip.

Cinebench R20 numbers put the Ultra 7 355 well ahead of the Steam Deck OLED's Zen 2 APU on both fronts, scoring about twice as high in single-core performance (733 vs. 357 median) and nearly three times as high in multi-core performance (4,359 vs. 1,521 median). Against the Ryzen Z1 Extreme in the ROG Ally X, though, it's a mixed result: the Ultra 7 355 leads in single-core performance by about 10% (742 vs. 672 median) but falls behind by roughly 25% in multi-core performance (4,359 vs. 5,794 median).

Against the Z1 Extreme's Radeon 780M in the ROG Ally X, Geekbench 6.7 GPU Vulkan numbers show the Ultra 7 355's 4-Xe3-core iGPU trailing by about 19% (25,473 vs. 31,404). Against the Steam Deck OLED's 8-CU APU, though, it comes out ahead by roughly 34% (25,473 vs. 19,051), comfortably outperforming Valve's handheld.

If this handheld SKU is pulled straight from the shipping U-die, both its CPU and GPU ceilings are already represented by laptops on shelves today, and neither matches the Claw/G3 Extreme tier. It comfortably outperforms the Steam Deck OLED APU in both CPU and GPU performance, but against the older Z1 Extreme, it's a mixed result: ahead in single-core CPU performance but behind in multi-core CPU and GPU performance.