Thanks to a surprise PassMark benchmark entry, we now have our first taste of how the Arc G3 Extreme may perform compared to its competition. While there’s still much to learn about this Intel Panther Lake handheld chip, these early signs suggest it’s decidedly faster than AMD’s Ryzen Z series.
X user x86deadandback spotted the benchmark results for the Arc G3 Extreme, which appear to have originated from the as-yet unannounced MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. The benchmark listing details 32GB of RAM using SK Hynix H58G66CK8BX147 DRAM chips. This LPDDR5X memory runs at 8,533MT/s, meaning there’s plenty of bandwidth for the GPU.
— X86 is dead&back (@x86deadandback) April 30, 2026
Run through PassMark, this single Arc G3 Extreme sample earns a 29,622 multi-threaded score and 4,288 single-threaded rating. It’s important to note that performance will differ across handhelds to some degree, and that MSI could still have some additional tweaks and tuning to make before launch.
Those caveats aside, comparing these results with those of the Ryzen Z2 Extreme paints Intel’s flagship in an extremely favourable light, with AMD’s handheld champion scoring 23,649 and 3,964, on average, in the same respective categories. That’s a massive 25% advantage in multi-threaded performance to Intel, in addition to a respectable 8% lead in single-threaded performance.
However, the Arc G3 Extreme does have far more cores at its disposal. According to the PassMark listing, the Intel SoC rocks two performance cores, eight efficient cores, and four low-power efficient cores, for a total of 14. By contrast, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme has eight, made up of three Zen 5 and five Zen 5c cores.
While we know AMD allows the Ryzen Z2 Extreme to run at 15-35W, we don’t yet know what kind of power budget Intel will bequeath to the Arc G3 Extreme. Based on my experience with the Claw A8 and Claw 8 AI+, combined with what we’ve already seen from Core Ultra Series 3, I’m relatively confident we’re in for a surprisingly efficient chip.
Impressive as this CPU performance is, I’m hungry to know more about how the Arc B390 GPU performs in a handheld, relative to RDNA 3.5 integrated graphics. There’s a hint in PassMark here, with the Intel chip rated at 55fps in DirectX 12 in its 3D graphics test. Comparatively, the most recent AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme result, again based on an AMD handheld, runs at 48fps. We’ll need to test this chip properly across several games to get the full picture, though, especially as these are unofficial, early results.
Hopefully we’ll learn more about the Claw 8 EX AI+ at Computex 2026. The Club386 team will be there, sniffing out stories from the trade show floor, so make sure you’re following the site on Google News to stay in the know.
For more on Intel’s mobile offerings, check out Ben’s Asus Zenbook Duo 2026 review to get a taste of what the Arc B390 GPU’s capabilities in a laptop.
