GoKawiilEach spring, leading PC hardware vendors gather in Taiwan for Computex , a massive showcase of everything from svelte new laptops to brighter and faster monitors, cooling, storage, CPUs, and motherboards. If you love PCs and related tech as much as we do, this show is the most important one of the year.
This year’s show was dubbed “AI Together," so there was, of course, plenty of focus on that monstrous marketing term and all-consuming tech trend. But because of AI’s continuing hardware demands, which have driven up prices while driving down general availability of things like RAM and storage, we saw a strange mix of products. Some companies were aiming to make things more affordable, while others launched future-looking hardware aimed at new paradigms of personal computing and using new kinds of manufacturing, which definitely won’t come cheap.
We even saw AMD re-release a CPU from four years ago , which will likely push more PC builders back to old – but more affordable – DDR4. Combine that with the recent listings for new SATA SSDs , and your next new PC might be decidedly retro.
This year’s standout products include handheld gaming PCs that may break AMD’s dominance, the best Windows-based answer to Apple’s MacBook Neo we’ve seen so far, and a motherboard wrapped in 3D-printed metal with 64 power phases and a max current rating that’s not usually seen outside of industrial machinery.
Intel Arc G3 Extreme
Intel Arc G3 Extreme
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
Intel has tried to break into the handheld market previously, but the new Arc G3 range is its bid to finally make a mark. Intel describes the two SoCs as GPUs with integrated CPUs, hence the Arc branding, and that’s actually a good way to think about them. The company cut two P-cores, as well as slimmed down the Thunderbolt and display engine, specifically to target the handheld form factor. It’s really the first time we’re seeing purpose-built SoCs for handhelds, rather than rebranded versions of existing laptop designs.
But the idea of an iCPU really comes to life with what Intel calls Intelligent Bias Control. It allows, at lower powers, the SoC to completely shut off the P-cores and run games exclusively on the E-cores. It’s a smart move, as most games are bound by GPU performance, and running high-power P-cores at all times leads to big spikes in frame time and far worse battery life. IBC, as Intel calls it, should offer both better battery life and more consistent performance at lower operating power.
The performance is already looking great, as well. We saw Forza Horizon 6 running on the Acer Predator Atlas 8 at native 1920 x 1200 with the High preset at above 60 fps. Again, that’s without any upscaling or frame generation. We saw similar performance in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which is still a fairly demanding Unreal Engine 5 game. We’ll have to evaluate the Arc G3 range in different handhelds and gaming scenarios to see how it holds up, but from our first impressions (and Intel’s bold 42% uplift claim versus the Ryzen Z2 Extreme), the range is shaping up nicely. — Jake Roach
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