Intel's Arc G3 goes official: Acer Predator Atlas 8 and OneXPlayer 3 PC gaming handhelds look powerful, expensive

Following rumours of Intel launching its first purpose-built chipsets for PC handhelds, a pair of Arc G3 models have now been made official as the Computex trade show kicks off in Taiwan. As we reported last month, the Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme pack in Intel's 14-core Panther Lake CPUs with up to 12 Xe3 graphics cores, for a package that includes competitive raster performance plus RT and XeSS 3 upscaling and multi frame generation.

One interesting software feature is the inclusion of Intel Precompiled Shaders, which seeks to banish the #stutterstruggle by cloud-compiled shaders for a select number of games (currently 13 titles). Valve uses a similar approach for SteamOS and the Steam Deck, but I believe this is the first time we'll have seen the tech in a Windows 11 handheld after it debuted on B-series discrete GPUs and Core Ultra 2/3-series laptops.

The flagship Arc G3 device revealed is the Acer Predator Atlas 8, which was leaked a few days ago. Along with official images of the device, versus the mock-ups we made earlier, we have full specs for the device, including an eight-inch 1920x1200 display (16:10 aspect ratio superiority!) rated for up to 500 nits of brightness at 120Hz with VRR.

Inside, there's 1TB SSD storage, up to 24GB of memory and a 80Wh battery; expansion is handled via MicroSD and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Both Arc G3 and G3 Extreme options will be available. Pricing is yet to be announced, but I expect it to be expensive based on the ongoing RAM/SSD pricing crisis - perhaps $2000 or more for the fully loaded model. The device is scheduled to launch in October, just four months away, so we should learn more on that front soon.

The OneXPlayer 3 looks like a higher-end model that comes with the top-spec Arc G3 Extreme chipset only. Its rounded shape supports handheld, tablet and laptop modes thanks to detachable gamepads and an optional detachable keyboard (!!). It's a very cool concept for a single device that could be used for work and play alike, speaking as someone that wrote an extremely long tech review on an Ayaneo handheld on a plane once.

The specs here look promising too, with an 8.8-inch OLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, VRR and HDR. The resolution of the display hasn't been announced, but I would guess 2560x1600 based on panels that are currently available. Other specs include an 85Wh battery, USB-C, USB-A and MicroSD storage expansion; SSD storage and RAM allocation is TBA.

This one will be available via a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in mid to late June, with pricing and retail availability data unconfirmed at this time. I would guess it will considerably more expensive than the Acer offering, given the difficulty in sourcing flash memory components at a good price these days, especially for smaller outfits.

MSI are also expected to be working on an Arc G3 handheld, though they're currently keeping their powder dry with no official announcement as yet. The device is expected to be the Claw 8 EX AI+, performance figures for which leaked at the beginning of May. Leaked retailer photos on Reddit show a device with refined side grip ergonomics, and specs are mooted to be extremely similar to the Atlas 8, including an eight-inch 1920x1200 120Hz 500 nit display, 32GB of memory, 1TB SSD storage and an 80Wh battery.

If you're interested in the full Arc G3 chipset specs, they're reproduced below.

What do you make of the Arc G3 announcement? Is it enough to tempt you away from an AMD Ryzen powered handheld, or are prices too high to make any new purchase worth it right now? Let me know in the comments.