Nvidia and Intel’s partnership could introduce the huge performance upgrade for handheld gaming PCs I’ve been hoping for

• Nvidia and Intel are teaming up to manufacture SoCs for AI servers and consumer PCs
• It comes after Nvidia's $5 billion investment in Intel
• It could be a green light for a DLSS-powered handheld gaming PC

It's been a long time coming, but it looks like Nvidia is finally planning to dive deeper into the portable gaming market, which could spell great news for handheld gaming PCs – and a potential move that could literally reshape the entire scene, challenging the best handhelds.

In case you missed it, Nvidia and Intel have partnered together, with Team Green investing $5 billion in the CPU manufacturing giant, with the intention of combining both CPU and GPU products for AI servers and consumer PCs – and notably, it means that SoCs will likely be manufactured for gaming laptops, which opens the door for new handheld gaming PC SoCs.

To put it simply, the announcement states that 'Intel will build x86 SoCs that integrate Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets' and those will 'power a wide range of PCs'.

This is huge news as it places both Team Green and Team Blue up against AMD, at least within the portable mobile gaming space, meaning the chances of seeing a DLSS-powered handheld gaming PC are high.

It wouldn't be the first time Nvidia has made a custom chip for a handheld. The Nintendo Switch 2 is powered by Nvidia's custom Tegra T239 chip, which allows several games to take advantage of DLSS for better performance and visual quality when upscaling.

If DLSS 4 powered a handheld gaming PC, it would significantly improve performance for users; older DLSS models and their performance modes would often spoil visual clarity, considering the aggressive upscaling involved in the previous CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) model.

With the new Transformer model, visual clarity has improved on performance modes, so handheld users could use these without a heavy sacrifice on visuals, while enjoying the benefits of performance they normally may not get on DLSS Quality mode.

It will be interesting to see what comes from this partnership for consumers, to say the least, and this could potentially see Nvidia take the throne in a market that its rival, AMD, currently dominates, with processors like the Ryzen Z2 Extreme and the Ryzen AI Max 395+.

Analysis: AMD might be in big trouble

If Intel and Nvidia manage to provide consumers with an RTX SoC, and it utilizes DLSS 4 for gaming laptops and handheld gaming PCs, AMD should be very worried.

While the Ryzen AI Max 395+ is in a league of its own, undoubtedly the best AMD APU as it stands, I have no doubts that an SoC based on Intel and Nvidia CPUs and GPUs could trump Team Red's portable magnum opus processor.

Not only is FSR 4 only officially available on RDNA 4 GPUs (despite the FSR 4 SteamOS Optiscaler workaround), but it's not better than Nvidia's DLSS 4 offering, specifically regarding the super resolution.

We've also already seen Intel efforts in the handheld market, with the Core Ultra 7 258V present in the MSI Claw 8 AI+, which I still label as the most powerful handheld under $1,000 – and that's thanks to the processor's efficiency with great performance at a 17W TDP (Thermal Power Design/power consumption).

I just hope that if Intel and Nvidia manage to dethrone AMD's best APUs, it doesn't lead to total domination in the handheld gaming PC market, because we need consistent competition.

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