Phoronix has benchmarked the Arc B390 Xe3 graphics integrated into Intel's Panther Lake processors, finding strong performance on the open-source Intel Compute Runtime under Linux. The tests compare the new hardware against previous Intel generations and AMD's Ryzen AI competition using OpenCL and GPU compute workloads. Results highlight the graphics' out-of-the-box compatibility with Linux drivers, though some gaps remain compared to Windows.
Phoronix conducted extensive benchmarking of Intel's Core Ultra X7 358H Panther Lake processor, focusing on its Arc B390 Xe3 integrated graphics. The evaluation used the latest open-source Intel Compute Runtime version 26.05.37020.3, paired with Intel Graphics Compiler 2.28.4, running on Linux kernel 6.19 atop Ubuntu 26.04 development. This setup provided production support for Panther Lake, marking the first public look at its GPU compute capabilities via OpenCL.
The tests compared Panther Lake's performance against several prior Intel platforms and an AMD rival:
- Intel Core i7 1185G7 (Tiger Lake) on Dell XPS 13 9310
- Intel Core i7 1280P (Alder Lake) on MSI Prestige 14 EVo A12M
- Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (Meteor Lake) on MSI Swift SFG14-72T
- Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (Lunar Lake) on Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13
- AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (Strix Point) on ASUS Zenbook S 14, using ROCm 7.2
Benchmarking began from Tiger Lake, as it represents the cutoff for current Intel Compute Runtime support on integrated GPUs. All systems ran in performance profile, with SoC power consumption monitored during the GPU compute workloads. The Arc B390 demonstrated effective out-of-the-box operation with Intel's open-source Linux driver stack, building on earlier OpenGL and Vulkan graphics tests. However, Phoronix noted ongoing gaps in Linux support relative to Windows.
Prior Vulkan compute benchmarks for Arc B390, including AI workloads like Llama.cpp, were covered in a separate article. Intel provided the Panther Lake review sample, an MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ D3MTG MS-14T2, for these Linux evaluations. No samples of AMD's higher-end Ryzen AI Max+ Strix Halo were available for direct comparison.
