Intel creates two handheld processors for the first time, with thermal design power consumption up to 80W

In the past two years, the gaming handheld market has been quite hot, and AMD is undoubtedly a big winner, and has also launched a dedicated Ryzen Z1 series processor for this purpose. Intel is worse. The previous Lunar Lake, namely the Core Ultra 200V series, is extremely energy efficient and very suitable, but unfortunately there are too few products.

With the release of the Core Ultra 300 series, Intel has finally created a dedicated processor for handheld computers. Even the names are a bit imitative of AMD. One is called Ruixuan G3 and the other is called Ruixuan G3 Extreme.

Yes, the processor is not called Core, but is called Ruixuan, which obviously highlights the importance of GPU performance, and this generation of core graphics is indeed quite powerful.

Intel disclosed the news of a dedicated handheld processor at CES 2026 at the beginning of the year. It was originally planned to be released within the first quarter, but the progress was not very smooth and was postponed to the end of the second quarter, which will be unveiled at the Taipei Computer Show 2026.

The life cycle will extend to the second quarter of 2027. It seems that with the release of Nova Lake in the first half of next year, the Intel handheld platform will be updated again.

In terms of specifications, the Ruixuan G3 series all have 16 cores, including 2P, 8E, and 4LPE. Such specifications are not available in the Core Ultra 300 series. They are specially designed for handheld devices, with 2 P cores castrated on the basis of 4+8+4.

The maximum core frequency of Ruixuan G3 Extreme is 4.7GHz. The core display was originally named Ruixuan B380, but now it is changed to Ruixuan B390, which is the same as the Core Ultra X 3x8H series. It presumably also has 12 Xe3 cores, and the maximum frequency is slightly lower at 2.3GHz.

The core frequency of Ruixuan G3 dropped to 4.6GHz, and the core display started with Ruixuan B360, now called Ruixuan B370, the same model as Core Ultra 5 338H, which is expected to have 10 cores and a maximum frequency of 2.2GHz.

The standard thermal design power consumption of Ruixuan G3 series is 25W, which can be configured up to 65W or 80W.

Samples of the Ruixuan G3 series have been released and are undergoing internal testing.

In terms of cooperative brands, MSI and Onebook are expected to be the first to launch related handheld products. Intel's slides also have the logos of GPD, Acer and even Microsoft, while Asus and Lenovo have not made any move yet.