Intel Panther Lake Arc B390 performance and efficiency analysis: Intel's new iGPU trades blows with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050

[Redaktion]

The new Panther Lake processors from Intel not only offer more CPU performance, but above all utilize a very fast integrated graphics card. The Arc B390 is around 70% faster than the previous iGPUs and can even keep up with the GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Panther-Lake-Arc-B390-performance-and-efficiency-analysis-Intel-s-new-iGPU-trades-blows-with-the-Nvidia-GeForce-RTX-4050.1212582.0.html

[br83taylor]

Nice article. Do you have any data points for Strix Halo at lower power? Based on the video from Digital Foundry on the GPD Win 5 it scales well down to comparable power settings, likely with higher efficiency.

[Terror Byte]

Although the Strix Halo GPUs are even faster (but not more efficient), they operate at higher power limits. There are only a handful of corresponding devices on the market, which then are also quite expensive.

Basless comment as you did not compare the two at the same power levels. The fact that 8060s @ 80W was more efficient than Panther Lake at its default power level tells me that 8060S compared at 20/28/35/45W would be very efficient too.

[opckieran]

Intel has just delivered +70% iGPU perf and efficiency out of thin air in a genuine thin and light form factor. Meanwhile, AMD fanboys are upset; the latest rumors say we'll be stuck with RDNA 3.5 until 2029! I'd be mad too!

[QnA's]

Do you have any data points for Strix Halo at lower power?

ThePhawx does. It does scale but only to a certain point. Halo does better at the higher power tiers while at the lower end panther lake does better.

The fact that 8060s @ 80W was more efficient than Panther Lake

Who uses or cares about performance at 80W? NUC users?

[AMDfan]

Meanwhile, AMD fanboys are upset; the latest rumors say we'll be stuck with RDNA 3.5 until 2029! I'd be mad too!

Currently going through the 5 stages of grief. Almost at the end now. I've just come to accept it.

From now on I will no longer comment on AMD gfx IP unless it's PlayStation or Exynos news. Not until after 2029, if their Radeon division hasn't been sold off to Sony by then.

[Nice, but price?]

Performance rating
Strix Halo memory interface is 256-bit lanes wide vs Panther Lake' 128-bit, but SH is only 65% faster.

Efficiency
When a power limit is set, it means the whole SOC or only the iGPU?
Not power limited - default power profile
B390 vs 890M: B390 is 22% more power efficient (and is similar to the 130V, 140V, Strix Halo's 8050S / 8060S and a 4050 Laptop.
So, not much, except it's better than the 890M.

B390 vs 860M: B390 is 34% more power efficient (a 1 full node / generation improvement).

B390 vs 880M: B390 is 65% more power efficient (a 2 full nodes / generations improvement).

With different power limits
B390 (20W) vs 860M (15W TDP): B390 is 90% more energy efficient.
B390 (20W) vs 880M (15W TDP): B390 is 135% more energy efficient.
B390 vs 890M (15W TDP): B390 is 46% (35W), 61% (28W) and 75% (20W) more energy efficient.

So, the B390 wins against the 860M, 880M and 890M ranging from 22% (no power limit) to 138% (20W power limit).

Personally, I prefer a light weight laptop and as such a low power SoC of, say, 15W up to maybe 30W TDP. And this is where Panther Lake shines, which is very nice to see.

But if this iGPU comes only in expensive laptops, people will simply get a 4050 laptop. So, Intel, maybe reduce the number of cores or whatever to make a cheaper SoC, with the same iGPU performance.

To test
I wonder how the B390 iGPU performs in path-tracing / full ray tracing. E.g. Cyberpunk 2077' Overdrive preset. Can you test this (performance and power efficiency)?

The big question is how well/stable do games run, maybe you can test that too (you did test the iGPU of the 1st gen Qualcomm Elite and many games didn't run/were unstable).

The fact that 8060s @ 80W was more efficient than Panther Lake at its default power level tells me that 8060S compared at 20/28/35/45W would be very efficient too.

With no limit the 8060S is only 5% more power efficient, so it's kinda within the margin of error or insignificant. But AFAIK, Panther Lake has 1 full node advantage (TSMC 3N for the GPU part?). Looks like something is reducing Panther Lake' power efficiency (Intel's CPU cores or something being clocked too high (would probably be the iGPU, because at low power Panther Lake's iGPU becomes really power efficient)).

Dave2D has similar to report: youtu.be/fDwt9AiItqU?t=142 ("Windows is Ruining New Laptops."), but the interesting thing he says is that Apple is taking laptop market share due to how Windows 11 is.

[IntelFan]

AMD fanboys are upset

As an IntelFan I'm also upset about because the best Intel iGPUs (10-12 graphics cores) are only available with soldered memory. Likewise AMD makes its Halo only available with soldered memory. Both use the same dirty tricks, when a product is too good and flexible for the customer, and then make it immutable. Enough reason to be mad about them both.

[CAMM2, LPCAMM]

IntelFan, soldered LPDDR5X memory reaches 8000 MT/s on Strix Halo and 9600 MT/s in Panther Lake. Upgradable DDR5 SODIMM memory reaches 5600 MT/s on AMD and may be slightly more on INTEL. 9600/5600 = 71% higher memory bandwidth and potentially 71% higher iGPU performance: They are the best iGPUs because they have the necessary bandwidth.

So, to solve the MT/s issue with changeable RAM, CAMM2/LPCAMM2/SOCAMM2 exist. So, what I would complain about then, is that no LPCAMM2/SOCAMM2 laptops exist. (CAMM2 is for desktops, would be nice if there were any AM5 mobos with CAMM2, too)

The only issues I see, is how much soldered memory one has and how likely it is that memory goes bad, because if it does, a repair is going to be impossible.

For LLM self-hosting, editing, running virtual machines, etc., I personally wouldn't complain too much if it there is a 48 GB RAM option.
64 GB RAM is going to be mostly relevant for LLMs.
96 GB RAM would allow to host e.g Gpt-Oss-120B or GLM-4.5-Air (quant) with almost full context¹.

¹ (go to huggingface.co/spaces/oobabooga/accurate-gguf-vram-calculator, paste huggingface.co/unsloth/gpt-oss-120b-GGUF/blob/main/gpt-oss-120b-F16.gguf into the calculator, set the context to full and see the (V)RAM consumption)

[opckieran]

Meanwhile, AMD fanboys are upset; the latest rumors say we'll be stuck with RDNA 3.5 until 2029! I'd be mad too!

Currently going through the 5 stages of grief. Almost at the end now. I've just come to accept it.

From now on I will no longer comment on AMD gfx IP unless it's PlayStation or Exynos news. Not until after 2029, if their Radeon division hasn't been sold off to Sony by then.

At which point we all lose thanks to AMD's long-inflicted mismanagement of Radeon.

[Kismet]

Nice, but Price?,

It's gonna be expensive if you want a decent laptop because that's the nature of the market. All the good laptops no matter what chip is inside are expensive.

Most of the larger efficiency gains seem to be under lighter loads like browsing. When gaming / heavier loads, it's diminishing returns probably like you said 22% more efficient. I think someone did a gaming battery life test and it was 2 hrs and 30 min. Compared to strix point which is closer to 2 hrs.

I think if you care about absolute efficiency, should wait Nvidia's N1. Because traditionally arm has always reigned supreme here. But then you've might to deal with compatibility issues. Wait and see if there's been any major improvement here or not, I guess.

[IntelFan]

So, to solve the MT/s issue with changeable RAM, CAMM2/LPCAMM2/SOCAMM2 exist. So, what I would complain about then, is that no LPCAMM2/SOCAMM2 laptops exist.

Yes, but I believe they are all in together (hardware vendors like Asus, Asrock, Dell, etc. and chip designers like Intel, AMD). They all know about it, but imo deliberately not use flexible/user-upgradable parts, because it's better for their own profit.