Panther Lake iGPU matches Xbox Series S in Digital Foundry’s Alan Wake 2 test
Source: WIRED/Intel
Intel’s Panther Lake iGPU matches Xbox Series S in Alan Wake 2, based on one test from Digital Foundry. Richard Leadbetter ran Alan Wake 2 on a Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 laptop with an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H and Arc B390, and compared it to Xbox Series S. In that specific scene, the laptop averaged 29.54 fps at a 30W limit, which was reported as about seven percent ahead of the console result.
The 30W cap is meant to mirror the kind of power limits used by handheld PCs, where 25W to 35W is a common target. The comparison is not a clean one-to-one match, because console and PC settings do not line up perfectly. Xbox Series S runs a 1440p output with FSR 2 upscaling from an internal 720p, plus extra cuts to features like foliage and shadows that are hard to replicate on PC.
Source: Digital Foundry
To probe headroom, the same laptop was also tested without the 30 fps cap and with v-sync disabled. The average moved to 32.77 fps, and the write-up suggests the jump from 30W to a higher mode near 45W did not translate into a large uplift on that chassis.
The result from Panther Lake was impressive, especially bearing in mind that 1440p output resolution isn’t typically associated with any PC SoC barring Strix Halo. I couldn’t quite achieve a locked 30fps, but I did get quite close: a 29.54fps average – seven percent higher than Series S with its more compromised feature set . The improvement might not sound tremendous, but it’s actually the difference between a reasonably steady 30fps with mostly even frame-pacing and a far less stable, more jerky experience on the junior Xbox.
— Richard Leadbetter, Digital Foundry
A second pass using PS5-equivalent settings is where the gap opens up. The numbers shared for that run put PS5 at 55.25 fps while the Panther Lake laptop averaged 28.91 fps, which is described as a 92% lead for the console. This is still only one game, and Alan Wake 2 can behave oddly on mobile integrated GPUs, so the result should not be treated as a general statement about all titles.
Faster than GTX 1060 and RX 580, but not as fast as RTX 2060 or RX 6600
PC Games Hardware also conducted tests focused on comparing integrated graphics to popular discrete solutions like the RTX 2060 and RX 6600.
According to the results, Arc B390 beats the GTX 1060 and RX 580 but trails the RTX 2060 and RX 6600, while averaging about 26.8 W (peaking around 31 W). In ray tracing, it avoids last place and can look steadier than the RX 6600 (which by the way matches Steam Machine specs) because it uses system memory as VRAM instead of being capped at 8 GB. It can keep pace with the RX 6600 in Doom: The Dark Ages and Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, but F1 25 still shows memory-related quirks.
Panther Lake graphics look very attractive already, and we know nothing about Core G3 iGPU implementations yet, perhaps they will be even better. So far the biggest issue with Panther Lake is limited availability and price. Xbox Series S is still much, much cheaper.
Source: Digital Foundry
