The market for compact gaming handheld is expanding at an unprecedented rate, thanks to the popularity boom that handhelds have received in recent months. The GPD Win Min (2025) is one such offering, sitting alongside the rest of interesting gaming products that GPD is known for. The Win Mini is now available for pre-order on Indiegogo, with a starting price of $769 (backers only), and a retail price of $839. Of course, interested buyers are encouraged to be mindful of the risks associated with crowdfunding campaigns, although GPD has mostly had a complaint-free track record.

Unfortunately, and rather unsurprisingly, the entry-level variant does not ship with the latest AMD Strix Point chips, but rather the older Hawk Point offerings, specifically the Ryzen 7 8840U with the Radeon 780M iGPU with 12 CUs. The higher-tier variants ship with Strix Point APUs, starting at the Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 APU, going all the way up to the 12-core Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with the powerful Radeon 890M iGPU. To accommodate the new APUs, GPD has reworked the thermals, and has added room for full-sized M.2 2280 SSD drives as well. The product packs hall-effect joysticks, plug-and-play grips, and a bunch of useful ports including USB4, USB 3.2 Type-C, an SD Card slot, an audio jack, as well as a good old USB-A port. The 7-inch 1080p display ramps up to 120 Hz, and the system can be equipped with up to 64 GB of memory and 2 TB of PCIe 4.0 storage, and a 44.24 Wh battery is also present.

At CES, AMD unleashed the much awaited Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APUs with mammoth iGPUs, up to a whopping 40 CUs for the Radeon 8060S. These chips are powerful enough to not require discrete graphics at all, making them ideal for mini PCs, which lack the physical room for dedicated graphics. GMK appears to be among the first to announce a mini PC with the top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, although any further details are under wraps as of now.

Unlike the Strix Point parts, Strix Halo abandons the smaller and more efficient Zen 5c cores for a Zen 5-only setup, with up to 16 Zen 5 cores for the highest-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 SKU. This allows for some serious performance potential, with AMD promising substantially better performance than both Intel's Lunar Lake and Apple's M4 Pro, although it would be much fairer to compare Strix Halo to Apple's M4 Max, and Intel's Arrow Lake-H/X instead. Regardless, there is no denying Strix Halo APUs open up new doors in terms of performance for compact systems, the rest remains to be seen as and when the products reach reviewers.

ASUS at the 2025 International CES showed off some of the first NUC desktops that meet Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC logo requirements. The new ASUS NUC 14 Pro AI measures 130 mm x 130 mm x 34 mm. It runs an Intel Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" processor. Depending on the processor model, you get 16 GB or 32 GB of hardwired LPDDR5X memory. You also get the processor's Xe2 "Battlemage" iGPU. Its NPU provides up to 45 AI TOPS of performance, meeting Copilot+ requirements. Storage is care of an M.2-2280 slot with NVMe Gen 4 x4 wiring. I/O options include two 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4 ports including DisplayPort passthrough, and networking that includes Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7.

ASUS won't (or probably can't use the "NUC" moniker with AMD processors), and so there's the ExpertCenter PN54 for those who want essentially the same device, but with an AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processor. This mini PC has the same exact dimensions as the NUC 14 Pro AI, and is powered by a Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" processor, with options going all the way up to the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. This chip includes the XDNA 2 NPU with 50 AI TOPS on tap, which means it meets Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC logo requirements. It also features the Radeon 870M RDNA 3.5 graphics with 16 CU. The chip uses standard dual-channel DDR5-5600 using SODIMMs. Storage includes an M.2-2280 slot with Gen 4 x4 wiring. In place of Thunderbolt 4, you get a couple of USB4 ports with 40 Gbps bandwidth and DP passthrough. Comms include Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7, just like on its Intel-powered sibling.

AMD today vastly fleshed out its mobile processor lineup with the introduction of two new processor lines besides the Ryzen AI Max 300 series. This includes the introduction of more processor models in the Ryzen AI 300 series that are powered by the "Strix Point" silicon, and the introduction of the Ryzen 200 series mobile processors, which are based on the older "Hawk Point" silicon. In 2024, AMD had debuted the Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point," but with just the top-end Ryzen AI 9 370 and 365, which came with maxed out 12-core/24-thread (4x Zen 5 + 8x Zen 5c) core configuration, and a maxed out iGPU with 16 CU. Today the company is introducing the Ryzen AI 7 350, the Ryzen AI 5 340, and their AMD PRO variants for commercial notebooks. Both the consumer and commercial parts have identical specs, except for the latter featuring the AMD PRO feature-set.

The Ryzen AI 7 350 comes with a CPU configuration of 8-core/16-thread (4x Zen 5 + 4x Zen 5c). All cores have a base frequency of 2.00 GHz, the Zen 5 cores boost up to 5.00 GHz. The iGPU on offer is the Radeon 860M, with 12 CU and an engine clock of up to 3.00 GHz. TDP is configurable between 15 W to 55 W. The Ryzen AI 5 340 comes with a 6-core/12-thread configuration (3x Zen 5 + 3x Zen 5c), and CPU clock speeds of 2.00 GHz base with 4.80 GHz boost achievable on the Zen 5 cores. The iGPU is heavily cut down, with just 4 CU available, and an iGPU engine clock of 2.90 GHz. Notebook designers can configure this chip with a wide power range from 15 W to 55 W. All four processor models mentioned above come with a Ryzen AI XDNA 2 NPU that's capable of 50 AI TOPS, which means they're all Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC logo eligible.

The Core Ultra 200H series of mobile processors is designed to cover the majority of mobile device use-cases from the next-generation. These chips are very much based on the latest "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture, but with a few clever design changes. This is a tile-based processor, just like the 200HX series; but the various tiles are different. The Compute tile, which packs the main CPU complex, is noticeably smaller, with 6 "Lion Cove" P-cores, and two "Skymont" E-core clusters with 8 E-cores sharing a 24 MB L3 cache, and a ringbus interconnect. Things get interesting with the SoC tile, which now contains two Low-power Island E-cores. At this point, it is unclear if these are "Skymont," or are older generation "Crestmont" cores, which would mean that Intel has carried over the SoC tile from "Meteor Lake-H."

The SoC tile also contains at 13 TOPS-class NPU, which means these chips miss out on Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC logo. The idea behind this could be that Intel is trying to promote the Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake," which comes with a powerful 45 TOPS NPU. The company is announcing several new models of "Lunar Lake" today, including vPro ones. Switching focus back to "Arrow Lake-H," and our attention is drawn back to the SoC and I/O tiles, which miss out on the number of PCIe lanes, particularly Gen 5 ones, which the Core Ultra 200HX chips come with. The game changer for this chip, however, is the large Graphics tile. The iGPU of "Arrow Lake-H" is based on the same Xe-LPG graphics architecture as the one on "Meteor Lake," and not Xe2 "Battlemage" like on "Lunar Lake." However, this iGPU is vastly different from the one the "Arrow Lake-HX" comes with.

Intel kicked off a slew of 2025 International CES announcements with the Core Ultra 200HX series. The HX segment of mobile processors covers a range of premium gaming notebooks and mobile workstations. These chips tend to be essentially the desktop S-segments of processors but redesigned for the mobile BGA package, letting the platform have the highest possible CPU core count from a client architecture. The same is the case with the Core Ultra 200HX series. It is based on the same chiplet based "Arrow Lake" die with a maximum CPU core count of 8P+16E. AI acceleration comes from a 13 TOPS-class NPU—this won't power Copilot+, but is enough for a few entry-level local AI acceleration workloads. The iGPU is the smallest "Arrow Lake" has to offer, but the idea is that its target platform will have discrete graphics.

The series is led by the Core Ultra 9 285HX, with the maximum 8P+16E core count, a maximum P-core boost frequency of 5.50 GHz. Next up, is the Core Ultra 9 275HX. This chip has the same 8P+16E core CPU configuration has the 285HX, but at slightly lower frequencies, with its P-core boost reaching up to 5.40 GHz. After this, is the Core Ultra 7 265HX, featuring an 8P+12E core CPU configuration, and 5.30 GHz maximum P-core boost. Positioned right below is the Core Ultra 7 255HX, with the same core configuration as the 265HX, but with 100 MHz lower clocks. The 275HX and 255HX appear to be designed for greater volumes.

"Twin Lake" is codename for a line of low-power x86-64 processors by Intel, which succeed the Core i3 N-series and N200 series "Alder Lake-N" processors. These non-socketed (BGA) chips power a wide range of devices from entry level notebooks and mini PCs to consumer NAS servers, and other embedded applications. The chips feature only E-cores. While "Alder Lake-N" used "Gracemont" cores, "Twin Lake" uses the swanky new "Skymont" cores, which serve as E-cores in "Lunar Lake" and "Arrow Lake" hybrid processors. "Skymont" cores feature massive IPC and clock-speed gains over "Gracemont," of nearly 50%, which pulls up their performance levels to match the "Golden Cove" and "Raptor Cove" P-cores of "Alder Lake" and "Raptor Lake," although these cores can't boost up to 5.00 GHz. We got the first name-drop of "Twin Lake" way back in May 2024. Jaykihn leaked what the processor lineup could look like.

The "Twin Lake" silicon features two "Skymont" E-core clusters sharing an L3 cache. At this point, the sizes of the shared L2 caches of the E-core clusters, and the size of the shared L3 cache are not known. On "Alder Lake-N," each "Gracemont" cluster features 2 MB of L2 cache, and the two clusters share a 6 MB L3 cache. The silicon also features an iGPU based on what is very likely the Xe-LPG graphics architecture, with four Xe cores worth 32 execution units (EU). The series is led by the Intel N355. This chip maxes out the "Twin Lake" silicon, enabling both "Skymont" clusters, for an 8-core/8-thread CPU configuration. The CPU comes with a base frequency of 3.00 GHz, and boosts up to 3.90 GHz. The chip comes with a configurable TDP of 9 W and 15 W. It comes with a maxed out iGPU, with all 32 EU being enabled, and a graphics frequency of 1.35 GHz.

AMD fans are undoubtedly on their toes to witness the performance improvements that Strix Halo is ready to bring forth. Unlike Strix Point, which utilizes a combination of Zen 5c and full-fat Zen 5 cores, Strix Halo will do away with the small cores for a Zen 5 "only" setup, allowing for substantially better multicore performance. Moreover, it is also widely expected that Strix Halo will boast chunky iGPUs that will bring the heat to entry-level and even some mid-range mobile GPUs, allowing Strix Halo systems to not require discrete graphics at all, with a prime example being the upcoming ROG Flow Z13 tablet.

As per recent reports, the upcoming Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 APU will sport an RDNA 3.5-based iGPU with a whopping 40 CUs, and will likely be branded as the Radeon 8060S. In a leaked Geekbench Vulkan benchmark, the Radeon 8060S managed to outpace the RTX 4060 Laptop dGPU in performance. However, according to yet another leaked benchmark, Passmark, the Radeon 8060S and the 32-CU 8050S scored 16,454 and 16,663 respectively - and no, that is not a typo. The 8060S with 40 CUs is marginally slower than the 8050S with 32 CUs, clearly indicating that the numbers are far from final. That said, performance in this range puts the Strix Halo APUs well below the RTX 4070 laptop GPU, and roughly the same as the RTX 3080 Laptop. Not bad for an iGPU, although it is almost certain that actual performance of the retail units will be higher, judging by the abnormally small delta between the 8050S and the 8060S.

OneXPlayer has pulled back the veil on its G1 gaming notebook, and the product sure does look intriguing. Calling it a notebook might not even be fair, considering that its 8.8-inch display barely exceeds tablet territory. However, for lovers of compact gaming systems and handhelds, the G1 looks like it ticks many boxes, and its detachable keyboard is undoubtedly a welcome addition.

The system is powered by AMD's 12-core Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" APU with 4 Zen 5 and 8 Zen 5c cores, along with a powerful Radeon 890M iGPU with 16 CUs based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture. The aforementioned 8.8-inch display is quite the looker as well, featuring a 2.5K resolution with a speedy 144 Hz refresh rate. At least on paper, it appears that the OneXPlayer G1 leaves very little room for complaint.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen AI Kraken Point APUs appear to be affordable APUs for next-generation thin-and-light laptops and potentially even some gaming handhelds. Murmurings of these new APUs have been going around for quite some time, but a PassMark benchmark was just posted, giving us a pretty comprehensive look at the hardware configuration for the upcoming Ryzen AI 7 350. While the CPU configuration in the PassMark result confirms the 4+4 configuration we reported on previously, it seems as though the iGPU portion of the new Ryzen AI 7 is getting something of a downgrade compared to previous generations.

While all previous mobile Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 APUs have featured the Radeon -80M or -90M series iGPUs, the Ryzen AI 7 350 steps down to the AMD Radeon 860M. Although not much is known about the new iGPU, it uses the same nomenclature as the Radeon iGPUs found in previous Ryzen 5 APUs, suggesting it is the less performant of the new 800 series iGPUs. This would be the first time, at least since the introduction of the Ryzen branding, that a Ryzen 7 CPU will use a cut-down iGPU. This, along with the 4+4 (Zen 5 and Zen 5c) heterogenous architecture, suggests that this Ryzen 7 APU will prioritize battery life and thermal performance, likely in response to Qualcomm's recent offerings. Comparing the 760M to the single 860M benchmark on PassMark reveals similar performance, with the 860M actually falling behind the average 760M by an average of 9.1%. Take this with a grain of salt, though, since there is only one benchmark result on PassMark for the 860M.

Just recently, we covered a juicy new leak regarding the Geekbench performance of the upcoming Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" APU. It is no secret that AMD plans on launching the Strix Halo lineup at CES 2025, which happens to be less than a month away. Unsurprisingly, leaked listings of upcoming laptops and other products have been steadily popping up on the internet, with the ASUS ROG Flow Z13 being the rumor mill's latest victim.

As revealed by the product listings by retailers, the ASUS ROG Flow Z13 will indeed pack some truly impressive specifications. Needless to say, the product will feature a variant with the highest-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU with 16 cores and 32 threads, along with an RDNA 3.5-based iGPU with 40 CUs, likely named the Radeon 8060S, which is expected to match mid-range discrete graphics in performance. A slightly lower-tier variant is also listed, with a 12-core Ryzen AI Max 390 APU.

Dynabook has introduced the Protégé X30W powered by up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 165H processor. At first glance, that hardly seems impressive, but a closer look at the device reveals that the laptop weighs a feather-light 989 grams, or roughly 2.2 lbs. The device is also a convertible, which means that the hinge allows for 360° rotation, effectively converting the laptop into a tablet.

Apart from its lightweight design, there is little else about the laptop that is worth noting. The highest-end variant sports a Core Ultra 7 165H, which is a plenty-powerful chip, featuring 6 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores for a total of 14 cores and 22 threads, since the Crestmont cores do not support Hyper-Threading. An 8-core Arc iGPU handles the graphics, and delivers decent performance that nearly matches the RTX 2050 Mobile in certain cases. The system features up to 32 GB of DDR5-5200 memory, and up to a 2 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD.

Minisforum is an easily recognizable brand that is well-regarded for its lineup of mini PCs. The MS-A1 is one such mid-range offering that boasts an AM5 socket, and the product is now available to configure with the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X with a 100 W TDP, which happens to be an absolute monstrosity of a desktop CPU with hefty cooling requirements.

The system was already available with a Ryzen 7 8700G, which was most likely performant enough for most people. The MS-A1 does not feature dedicated graphics, which is why the Ryzen 7 8700G was a great choice thanks to its relatively potent iGPU. However, it is no surprise that there are many workloads that demand raw CPU power over anything else, and the MS-A1 with the Ryzen 9 9950X will be an excellent option for such demanding scenarios. That said, since the system does not feature discrete graphics, the Radeon 610M iGPU found in the 9950X will simply not be able to keep up with any GPU-intensive workloads.

During Barclays 22nd Annual Global Technology Conference, Intel was a guest and two of the interim company co-CEOs Michelle Johnston Holthaus and David Zinsner gave a little update on the state of affairs at Intel. One of the most interesting aspects of the talk was Intel's upcoming "Panther Lake" processor—a direct successor to Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake-H" mobile processors. The company confirmed that Panther Lake would utilize an Intel 18A node and that a few select customers have powered on Panther Lake on the E0 engineering sample chip. "Now we are using Intel Foundry for Panther Lake, which is our 2025 product, which will land on 18A. And this is the first time that we're customer zero in a long time on an Intel process," said interim co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus, adding, "But just to give some assurances, on Panther Lake, we have our ES0 samples out with customers. We have eight customers that have powered on, which gives you just kind of an idea that the health of the silicon is good and the health of the Foundry is good."

While we don't know what ES0 means for Intel internally, we can assume that it is one of the first engineering samples on the 18A. The "ES" moniker usually refers to engineering samples, and zero after it could be the first design iteration. For reference, Intel's "Panther Lake-H" will reportedly have up to 18 cores: 6 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LP cores. The design brings back low-power island E-cores in the SoC tile. The P-cores use "Cougar Cove," which should have a higher IPC than "Lion Cove," while keeping the existing "Skymont" E-cores. The SoC tile may move from Arrow Lake's 6 nm to a newer process to fit the LP cores and an updated NPU. The iGPU is said to use the Xe3 "Celestial" architecture. With Arrow Lake-H launching in early 2025, Panther Lake-H likely won't arrive until 2026.

CES 2025 is less than a month away and leaks about AMD Strix Halo APUs are starting to emerge. Today we have confirmation via a leaked Geekbench Vulcan test that AMD will launch the Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 395 w/ Radeon 8060S "Strix Halo" APU. Information reveals that this APU is equipped with 16 Zen 5 cores with 32 threads, a 3 GHz base frequency (4.4 GHz max), and a boost up to 5.1 GHz. It sports a 32 MB L3 cache per CCD for a total of 64 MB since it uses a dual CCD chip design. The TDP should be between 55-130 W. Moreover, the "PRO" in the product naming suggests that AMD could release non-PRO models at a later date.

The integrated Radeon 8060S iGPU adopts the RDNA 3.5 architecture with 40 computing units and was tested using an AMD reference board design codenamed AMD MAPLE-STXH and 64 GB of memory scoring 67,004 points in the Geekbench Vulkan test. This initial result is lower than AMD Radeon RX 7600 RDNA 3 discrete entry-level products (despite having more cores 40CU vs 32CU), and higher than NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050. However, since the benchmark was run on an evaluation platform without optimized drivers and more likely using an early test sample product, we can expect the actual performance of the Radeon 8060S iGPU to be higher.

GPD recently updated its Win 4 gaming handheld with Strix Point APUs, and has now seemingly turned its attention to the Win Max 2. The system is available on Indiegogo, with an estimated shipping time set for sometime this December. The Strix Point update will not only bring improved performance to the table, but also enhance overall energy efficiency, which is crucial for such compact form factors.

The Win Max 2 is now available with AMD's latest Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU "Strix Point" APU, although a "Hawk Point" variant with a Ryzen 7 8840U is also available. The Strix Point APU outperforms the Hawk Point APU in almost every possible way, with the 12-core HX 370 pulling ahead of the 8-core 8840U by almost 45% in multithreaded benchmarks. In graphics performance, the story is much the same, with the Radeon 890M iGPU leading the 780M by almost 25% in synthetic benchmarks.

It's been public knowledge for a while now that Lenovo is planning an imminent successor to its Legion Go handheld that has proven rather popular among handheld gamers. Previous leaks and rumors indicated that the Legion Go S 8ARP1, as it will apparently be named, will be a more affordable version of the current Legion Go. Now, thanks to Roland Quandt, Windows Central, and WinFuture, more details about the upcoming Legion Go S have leaked, including images of the device, supposed specifications, and a potential price.

According to the leaks, the new affordable handheld gaming PC will feature some substantial hardware changes, including a slightly smaller eight-inch display, this time with a much lower 1920 × 1200p resolution and a slightly lower 120 Hz refresh rate. Gone, too, are the Nintendo Switch-style detachable controllers, with the Legion Go S instead featuring a white unibody design. What's more interesting than the leaked images of the Legion Go S or the hardware changes—detachable controllers or not, the Legion Go is still intended to be used as a handheld—is the new AMD APU that will seemingly power the Go S. The as-yet unannounced AMD Ryzen Z2G looks like it will be an odd core configuration featuring an AMD Radeon 680M iGPU and Zen 3+ cores. Ultimately, the APU seems like it will put the Legion Go S somewhere between the current-generation Legion Go and devices featuring the AMD Ryzen Z1 (non-extreme), which is a good place to be if Lenovo hopes to compete with the likes of the Steam Deck OLED, which will seemingly cost around the same as the Legion Go S, depending on which region you are in.

Recent Geekbench results have surfaced for Intel's unreleased Core Ultra 5 225F processor without an integrated GPU, showcasing interesting performance improvements over its predecessors. The benchmark results, initially shared by Benchleaks on X, reveal that this new 10-core chip delivers performance comparable to the higher-core-count Core i5-13600. The Core Ultra 5 225F achieved a single-core score of 2,653 points and a multi-core score of 13,028 points. The processor combines six P-cores, four E-cores, and 20 MB of L3 cache. During testing, the chip reached a maximum frequency of 4.887 GHz. When compared to its direct predecessor, the Core i5-14400F, the new 225F demonstrates significant improvements with approximately 13% better performance in both single and multi-core tests.

More impressively, it manages to edge out the 14-core Core i5-13600 by 5% across both metrics despite having fewer cores and threads. However, the 225F falls behind its premium sibling with four more E-cores, the Core Ultra 5 245K, which outperforms it by 16% in single-core and 44% in multi-core operations. The Core Ultra 5 225F is expected to be part of Intel's new 65 W TDP lineup, targeting mainstream desktop systems with limited overclocking capabilities. This positions it as a more energy-efficient alternative to the current 125 W TDP Core Ultra 200 series processors. While we wait for more firmware updates to boost Arrow Lake performance, Intel could target the launch of the F-series SKUs for CES 2025, which is just a few weeks away now.

MSI previously gave us a teaser of what to expect from its upcoming Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld with Intel's Lunar Lake Core Ultra CPUs, calling it "the most advanced 8-inch gaming handheld in the market," but a recent CES listing has divulged more details about the upcoming challenger to the likes of the Lenovo Legion Go. For starters, the upgraded battery capacity has been revealed, along with an estimated battery life and performance figures. Supposedly, more information will be revealed about the Claw 8 AI+ at CES 2025, which starts on January 7, 2025.

According to the CES page, the new MSI Claw 8 AI+ will have an 8-inch display and an 82 WHr battery, which will supposedly be able to deliver "4+ hours of gameplay for AAA titles." However, these manufacturer claims are generally to be taken with healthy helpings of salt, especially in when it comes to claims as nebulous as "AAA titles" without any proposed quality settings, specific games, or frame rates. Regarding the display, it wouldn't be surprising to see MSI use the same display as the one found in the Lenovo Legion Go, since there is a somewhat limited selection of 8-inch displays for handheld gaming devices. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ will also use Intel's 2nd-generation ARC iGPUs in conjunction with AI-enhanced graphics, which should provide a healthy uptick in both performance and efficiency, with the CES listing touting 48 TOPS of compute power.

Intel is expected to debut its next-generation Arc "Battlemage" discrete GPU in December 2024, or ahead of the 2025 CES, HotHardware reports, citing Golden Pig Upgrade, a reliable source with GPU leaks. The source says that they expect "wonderful performance" for the GPU. Intel has a lot invested in its PC graphics division, across not just its two-year-old Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, but also the integrated graphics solutions it's been launching with its Core Ultra processor generations. It debuted the DirectX 12 Ultimate-capable Xe-LPG graphics architecture with Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" and Arc Graphics branding, which it carried forward to the Core Ultra Series 200 "Arrow Lake" on the desktop platform. Meanwhile, "Battlemage" got debuted as the iGPU of the Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" mobile processor, which posted gaming performance beating that of the Ryzen 8000 "Hawk Point" processor, but falling short of the Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point."

Intel is expected to tap into a fairly new foundry node for the Arc "Battlemage" discrete GPU series. Its chips could strike a performance/Watt and performance/price inflection point in the performance segment, that drives the most volumes for NVIDIA and AMD. It is this exact segment that AMD has withdrawn from the enthusiast segment to focus on, with its next-generation Radeon RDNA 4 generation. With "Alchemist," Intel already laid a strong foundation for hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI, and the company is only expected to advance on these fronts further. Could "Battlemage" and "Granite Rapids" go down as the most exciting products from Intel in 2024? We should find out next month.

GEEKOM, a Taiwanese tech company also known as the Green Mini PC Global Leader, just released its first model powered by an Intel Alder Lake-N series SoC. The GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite is a tiny desktop PC with an Intel N100 quad-core processor, DDR4-3200 RAM, a PCIe Gen 3 SSD, and support for dual displays. The mini PC is now available on Amazon and GEEKOM's official website.

The Mini Air12 Lite measures 135.5 x 115.5 x 34.5 mm (0.5L) and weighs about 1 kilogram. It features a single SO-DIMM slot which supports up to 16 GB of DDR4-3200 MHz memory, and an M.2 2280 slot that can accommodate a PCIe 3.0 or SATA SSD of up to 1 TB. The mini PC runs on a licensed copy of Windows 11 Pro out of the box.

AYANEO has teased its upcoming handheld, the REVO 3, once again via a recent YouTube video. Much like its previous rounds of teasers, details regarding the underlying specs of the system were suspiciously absent. With the advent of extremely potent APUs with powerful iGPUs, gaming handhelds are rapidly increasing in popularity, and AYANEO clearly does not wish to be left out either.

The aforementioned YouTube video gives us a sneak peek at what the REVO 3 would look like, giving us a glimpse of its design which honestly looks like any other handheld on the market. The video also portrays its various buttons and analog sticks, but they appear to be exactly what we have come to expect from these handhelds.

Intel today released the latest version of its Arc GPU Graphics drivers. Version 101.6129 WHQL adds support for the Xe-LPG integrated graphics of the Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors. The drivers also come with optimization for "Call of Duty: Black Ops 6," and performance improvements for "Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred" to the Xe-LPG iGPU of Core Ultra 100-series "Meteor Lake" mobile processors. The drivers fix an issue applicable to Arc A-series discrete GPUs where Blender may experience an application crash. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.6129 WHQL

The second generation of AMD Ryzen Z-series processors for handheld gaming consoles, will be led by the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. There will also be an affordable Ryzen Z2 (non-Extreme). We've known for some time that the Z2 Extreme is based on the 4 nm "Strix Point" monolithic silicon, with some optimization (the highest bins to facilitate the best energy efficiency); but now we have a few more details thanks to a leak by Golden Pig Upgrade. AMD's engineering effort with the Z2 Extreme will be to give the console the most generational performance uplift from the iGPU, rather than the CPU.

The "Strix Point" silicon features a significantly updated iGPU from the previous-generation "Phoenix." It's based on the more efficient RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, which is better optimized for LPDDR5 memory; and comes with 16 compute units (CU), compared to 12 on the "Phoenix." The Ryzen Z2 Extreme will come with all 16 CU enabled. The CPU is where some interesting changes are planned. The "Strix Point" silicon features a dual-CCX CPU, one of these contains four "Zen 5" CPU cores sharing a 16 MB L3 cache, while the other features eight "Zen 5c" cores sharing an 8 MB L3 cache. For the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, AMD is going with an odd 3+5 core configuration. What this means is that the Ryzen Z2 Extreme will have 3 "Zen 5" cores, and 5 "Zen 5c" cores. The L3 cache on the CCX with "Zen 5" cores has been reduced to 8 MB in size. On paper, this is still an 8-core/16-thread CPU with 16 MB of L3 cache (same as "Phoenix,") but now you know that there's more going on.

As we await the launch of Intel's "Arrow Lake-S" Core Ultra 200S series of processors for desktops, we are getting some new leaks about Intel's mainstream mobile "Arrow Lake-H" update. A month ago, we got the specification table of the high-end mobile "Arrow Lake-HX," and now, thanks to Jaykihn X, we have the mainstream laptop chip specifications as well. The top-of-the-line includes Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, a 45 W TDP SKU with six P-cores, eight E-cores, and two LPE cores. The CPU packs integrated Xe2 graphics with eight cores and 24 MB of total L3 cache and has a maximum boost of 5.4 GHz for P-cores.

Moving down the stack, there are Core Ultra 7 265H and Core Ultra 5 255H SKUs, which feature the same P/E/LPE core configuration. However, these SKUs are rated for 28 W TDP, having lower maximum frequencies and the same iGPU configuration. This time, we also have two Core Ultra 3 SKUs, with Core Ultra 3 235H and 225H bringing four P-cores, eight E-cores, and two LPE-cores in the 28 W package. The Core Ultra 3 235H has eight Xe2 cores in its iGPU, while the lowest-end Core Ultra 3 225H has only seven Xe2 iGPU cores. For a complete set of specifications, including all clock speeds in base and boost, please check out the table below.