After teasing the range earlier this year, Intel has officially revealed its Arc G3 range of chips designed for the best handheld gaming PCs. The Arc G3 range includes two SKUs, the Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme, that are built on Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3, or Panther Lake, silicon, and packing either the Arc B390 or Arc B370 integrated GPU, which are still the only two graphics processors on the market with Intel’s Xe3 architecture.

Intel has previously tried breaking into the handheld market with partner MSI, but it’s a space that’s been dominated by AMD’s Ryzen Z-series processors. Valve launched the Steam Deck with a custom AMD SoC, which was refined in the Steam Deck OLED, and both the ROG Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go S have stuck with Team Red. Intel’s G3 series looks like an attempt to establish Intel as a name in PC gaming handhelds, rather than just throwing laptop SKUs in the unique form factor as we’ve seen with devices like the MSI Claw.

Both chips use a 14-core CPU with 2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores. The main difference between them is the integrated GPU. The Arc B390 comes with 12 Xe3 cores while the Arc B370 comes with 10. Intel has yet to confirm clock speeds and power draw for the new range.

It has provided some other details, however. For starters, the G3 Extreme series will feature Intel Precompiled Shaders. AMD has recently partnered with Microsoft to provide something similar on desktop with Advanced Shader Delivery. The idea is that you download a precompiled set of shaders rather than compiling them at runtime, vastly reducing the time it takes to get into a game.

We’ve yet to see a true head-to-head battle between the Arc G3 and Ryzen Z ranges, but our testing of the B390 shows that it’s one impressive iGPU. Using high settings at 1080p with XeSS set to Balanced, we were able to achieve above 80 fps in Cyberpunk 2077. Mind you, that performance was inside a 16-inch Lenovo reference laptop. Expect lower performance inside a thermally-constrained handheld.

As with all recent Intel Arc graphics, Arc G3 chips come with full support for XeSS 3, including multi-frame generation, AI upscaling, and latency reduction. You’ll only be able to access those features in supported games, however. Unlike AMD, Intel doesn’t currently offer driver-level frame generation along the line of AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF).

Intel says the chips will also arrive with Wi-Fi 7 R2, dual Bluetooth 6, and Thunderbolt 4. Partner systems from Acer, MSI, and OneXPlayer will start rolling out "in the coming months." Intel will be showing off several handhelds with the new Arc G3 range at Computex, and Tom's Hardware will have folks on the ground in Taipei to check them out in the flesh.

Intel is expected to host a grand reveal for its rumored "Arc G3" series of chips for handhelds at the upcoming Computex 2026 show. According to Videocardz, one of those handhelds is being cooked up by Acer and is called the "Predator Atlas 8," suggesting it's an 8-inch device, likely going up against the MSI Claw 8.

The Arc G3 series is Intel's expected handheld push based on Panther Lake silicon, customized for maximum efficiency and competing against the Ryzen Z2 platform, which it teased at CES (though without the "Arc G3" name).

The Predator Atlas would be Acer's fourth handheld following the three models from its "Nitro Blaze" lineup: Blaze 7, Blaze 8, and Blaze 11. You might've never heard of those names because Acer hasn't released the Blaze 8 and 11 in global markets, while the Blaze 7 was never marketed enough to make a splash. Donning the new handheld in Predator branding, though, would suggest a more serious attempt at converting some of the Acer Predator laptop audience to a handheld.

Apart from the fact that it may reportedly feature an 8-inch screen, we don't know anything else about the rumored Predator Atlas 8. We do know quite a bit about Panther Lake, however. The Arc G3 was known as "Core G3" up until a couple of months ago, with leaks suggesting that the series has been delayed into Q2 2026. Intel has also famously taken digs at AMD's Z2 series, claiming it uses "ancient silicon," so it'll be interesting to see how G3 performs.

As mentioned, Intel teased its handheld push earlier this year alongside the Core Ultra Series 3 launch, but we didn't really get any details at the time. Since then, rumors have pointed toward two different SKUs: a standard Arc G3 and a G3 Extreme — both are tipped to have the same 14 cores split across a 2P+8E+4LP-E configuration, with integrated graphics where the silicon is expected to differ.

The base model likely has an Arc B370 iGPU with 10 Xe3 cores based on the "Celestial" architecture. The same graphics, core config, and a (P-core) boost clock speed of 4.7 GHz are also seen on the Core Ultra 5 338H processor, so the G3 could be an offshoot of that silicon. The Arc G3 extreme reportedly houses an Arc B390 iGPU instead, which would consist of 12 Xe3 cores; the Core Ultra X9 388H and Core Ultra X7 386H have the same iGPU.

Given Panther Lake's advances in gaming performance and efficiency across the board, the Arc G3 lineup should easily stand its ground against AMD's Ryzen Z2 family. We should expect the Red and Blue Teams to trade blows at mid to high power levels, but at lower wattages, Intel may be hard to beat, considering Lunar Lake was already impressive in that department.

Microsoft has just unveiled its latest generation of Surface devices for businesses. The new Panther Lake-powered lineup includes two refreshed machines along with a new entry-level Surface Laptop that somehow costs more than the MacBook Air but features only 8GB of RAM amid the AI gold rush. Let's see what these machines have to offer.

Surface Laptop 13-inch

First, there's the new Surface Laptop 13-inch (1st Edition). This seems to be the same device Microsoft launched last year on the Snapdragon X Elite platform, now incorporating Intel's Panther Lake chips instead. It's a new chassis for the Surface for Business lineup, and it starts at $1,499 with 16GB of RAM and a Core Ultra 5 325 CPU.

There's also an 8GB model planned for later this year that'll cost $1,299 instead. For reference, Microsoft determines that at least 16GB of RAM is required for a PC to be Copilot+ compatible, so the 8GB model of the 13-inch Surface Laptop is not ready for local AI tasks according to the company's own guidelines.

RAMpocalypse or not, it's worth remembering just how limiting 8GB of RAM is in 2026 — even flagship phones get more than that now. Apple's otherwise excellent $600 MacBook Neo was criticized for only featuring 8GB of memory despite its entry-level ambitions, so you can imagine just how risible that spec is for a system at more than double the price.

Anyhow, you get 2x USB-C and 1x USB-A ports, both running at USB 3.2 speeds, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on this laptop. The same Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity, a 1080p webcam, and up to 22 hours of local video playback. The 13-inch screen is still branded as "PixelSense" but it's only 1080p 60 Hz and has no HDR support. But the laptop is still made out of aluminum, which is to be expected for a device that costs this much.

When do you buy an upgrade for your PC setup?

Surface Laptop 8

The higher-end Surface Laptop 8 comes in two different variants: 13.8-inch and 15-inch. The base 13.8-inch model starts at $1,949, featuring a Core Ultra 5 335 with 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM and 256GB of PCIe 4.0 storage that's user-replaceable. The 15-inch model starts at $2,149 instead and upgrades the display resolution to 3270x2180, which comes out to 262 PPI versus the 201 PPI you'll get on the 13.8-inch machine.

You can spec out either variant with up to a Core Ultra X7 368H with Arc B390 graphics, a 1TB SSD and 64GB of RAM. The absolute maxed-out model will cost $4,499. For context, you can get the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with a M5 Max (upgraded to 40-core GPU), 64GB memory, and 2TB of significantly faster PCIe 5.0 storage for $4,599.

The Surface Laptop 8 offers up to 23 hours of "local video playback" on the 13.8-inch model and up to 21 hours on the 15-incher. Apart from the size, both variants have identical displays specs — 120 Hz, 3:2 aspect ratio "PixelSense" IPS touchscreens with a maximum brightness of 600 nits across SDR and HDR content. The 13.8-inch model also gets a software-driven "integrated privacy screen" that can obfuscate content on your screen at an angle, similar to what Samsung has done with its Galaxy S26 Ultra.

Lastly, as mentioned before, the Surface Laptop 8 shares the same design as its predecessor, the Surface Laptop 7, but there's one upgrade under the hood that Microsoft is calling "advanced haptics." The trackpad will now intelligently simulate clicks with tactile feedback, such as steps in a volume slider or snapping windows to corners. Beyond Windows 11, third-party apps can also take advantage of this feature.

Surface Pro 12

Last up is the Surface Pro 12, and it comes in the same 13-inch configuration as the previous Surface Pro 11. It's a 2-in-1 tablet that comes with a detachable keyboard that works with Surface Connect magnets, so you can use your old accessories with it. It also starts at $1,949 and features the same Core Ultra 5 335 CPU and 16GB of memory, along with the removable 256GB SSD.

The specs page says you can upgrade it to a Core Ultra 7 366H, but we didn't see that option in Microsoft's device configurator, nor could we find the 1TB storage or 64GB RAM models. There's an option for an OLED display listed, too, but once again, it's not actually available when you go to buy the device. Instead, the Surface Pro 12 gets a 13-inch version of the same "PixelSense" display you see on the Surface Laptop.

For connectivity, there are 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports and that's it, but there's also Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support. The Surface Pro has two cameras — a 10-megapixel 4K shooter on the back and a 1440p webcam up front. The battery life is rated at up to 17 hours.

Microsoft is targeting the business and enterprise segment with these new Surface products, so they cost a bit more than their consumer counterparts. These business devices come with extra security features, more thorough remote management, and generally better stability since professionals are supposed to rely on them for critical work. The consumer devices stripped of these extras should be a bit cheaper.

With production of Core Ultra 300 'Panther Lake' and Xeon 6+ 'Clearwater Forest' ramping at Intel's fab in Arizona, Intel is seemingly on the right track to recovery in the coming years. While it's not out of the woods yet, Intel's market capitalization on Thursday was its highest in over 25 years, or since the dot-com boom went bust, according to CompaniesMarketCap.com.

Intel's market capitalization increased to $305 billion on Thursday, up 3.5X from mid-April 2025, and up 2.8X from August 20, 2025, when the U.S. government announced plans to acquire a 10% stake in Intel. The company is now the world's 48th most valuable company by market capitalization. While it trails ASML, AMD, Applied Materials, Lam Research, and other semiconductor peers, it is well ahead of KLA, IBM, Siemens, and Texas Instruments.

The sharp increase follows Intel's announcement of Google's commitment to use Xeon processors for years to come, which emphasizes relevance of Intel's CPUs; the TeraFab partnership, which gives a nod to Intel's capabilities in design, produce, and package high-performance processors at scale; and a host of various AI-related narratives meant to demonstrate applicability of the company's products in the rapidly growing artificial intelligence sector.

Intel's peak market capitalization was $502.71 billion at the height of the dot-com cycle in August 2000, when the company dominated both PCs and web servers. In today's dollars, that would be around $1.0 trillion. Formally, Intel's current capitalization of $305.25 billion is higher than its $219.1 billion capitalization in late 2003 when the company took the rapidly growing laptop market by storm with its Centrino platform and re-accelerated its growth.

Nonetheless, $305 billion is higher than Intel's peaks in recent years: $257.23 billion in mid-2018 due to Intel's dominance in the growing data center sector $273.43 billion in early 2020 due to the cloud computing boom, and $262.87 billion in April 2021 due to the PC market and cloud computing growth amid the pandemic. That said, Intel is indeed going in the right direction, at least if you ask investors.

Still, Intel's valuation history reflects a transition from a dominating CPU vendor commanding PCs and servers to a mature, execution-sensitive semiconductor company. Intel's market capitalization today is driven more by its strategic narratives associated with AI, foundry, and process technology ambitions, and mid-term product roadmaps than by its earnings. The recent climb toward ~$300 billion indicates renewed investor optimism, but unlike the 2000 peak, this optimism is based on expectations of a turnaround rather than on the already achieved dominance and expectations for skyrocketing sales.

After revealing them last month, Intel has officially launched its Xeon 600 range of workstation CPUs. Previously known as Granite Rapids-WS, the range includes 11 SKUs, five of which will be available in boxed retail units. The chips support Intel’s updated vPro platform, alongside a range of Panther Lake chips that are now certified for business use with vPro.

Intel hasn’t shared new benchmarks for its Xeon 600 CPUs, still leaning on a claim of up to 61% faster multithreaded performance and up to 9% better single-threaded performance compared to last-gen Sapphire Rapids-WS chips. The news is that Xeon 600 CPUs are now available, starting at $499 and going up to $7,699. That includes OEM systems, boxed retail units, and motherboards with the new W890 chipset; though, Intel says you need to check with individual retailers on specific SKU availability.

As a recap, Xeon 600 are supported on the new W890 chipset, supporting up to 4TB of ECC memory in eight channels at up to 8000MT/s. The platform also supports up to 128 PCIe 5 lanes. For the chips themselves, they scale up to 86 scores using the Redwood Cove microarchitecture. Xeon 600 chips exclusively use the P-core design, with support for Hyper-Threading. They also come with Intel AMX in each core, with support for FP16 instructions to accelerate AI workloads, along with AVX-512 support.

As a recap, Xeon 600 are supported on the new W890 chipset, supporting up to 4TB of ECC memory in eight channels at up to 8000MT/s. The platform also supports up to 128 PCIe 5 lanes. For the chips themselves, they scale up to 86 scores using the Redwood Cove microarchitecture. Xeon 600 chips exclusively use the P-core design, with support for Hyper-Threading. They also come with Intel AMX in each core, with support for FP16 instructions to accelerate AI workloads, along with AVX-512 support.

Alongside Xeon 600, Intel is launching Core Ultra Series 3 (formerly known as Panther Lake) chips for businesses with vPro certification. The lineup is slimmer compared to the client Core Ultra Series 3 stack, but the specs are identical. The difference, of course, is Intel vPro support.

Like the client stack, Core Ultra Series 3 processors with vPro support up to 96GB of LPDDR5 memory and up to 12 PCIe 5 lanes. The SoC is the first to use Intel’s 18A node on the compute tile, which combines Cougar Cove P-cores with Darkmont E-cores. The chips also come with Intel’s latest NPU 5 AI accelerator and an Xe3 iGPU with up to 12 cores. As we’ve seen with devices like the Asus Zenbook Duo, the iGPU is where Core Ultra Series 3 processors really earn their stripes, particularly the X-series models with the full 12 Xe3 cores.

You can see that from Intel’s internal benchmarks, as well. The Core Ultra X7 358H holds some victories over AMD’s competing Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 in general productivity workloads, but it runs away with graphics performance. Intel also claims significantly higher AI performance in Geekbench AI 1.6. Keep in mind, however, that Geekbench is a pure benchmark; it isn’t a real-world workload.

Intel details ‘all-new’ vPro platform

Both Xeon 600 and Core Ultra Series 3 chips for business support Intel’s updated vPro platform, which includes a handful of new features. For starters, Intel is expanding what vPro covers with the vPro Certified Apps and Accessories Program. As the name suggests, Intel is working with ISVs and OEMs to validate applications and accessories for vPro use. On the application side, Intel says vPro certification means apps are “optimized for battery life and performance,” while for accessories, they’re “certified for seamless connectivity.”

Through early engagements with ISVs, Intel says it’s seen up to a 59% reduction in CPU utilization in FlexxAgent (an endpoint application for centralized IT management) with vPro optimizations, a 56% improvement in power efficiency in Riverbed Aternity (an employee management platform), and a 74% reduction in background activity in Absolute Secure Endpoint. Alongside these applications, Intel says it has partnerships with ESET, Citrix, and Crowdstrike, among others, along with Dell, HP, Jabra, Lenovo, and Logitech on the accessories front.

Also new is Intel Device IQ, which is enabled through Lakeside, Riverbed, Control Up, and Flexxible software. Intel says Device IQ “collects PC telemetry, [and] uniquely applies local AI to trigger remediation directly on the device.”

On the security front, Intel has added its Total Storage Encryption (TSE) feature to vPro, alongside Intel Threat Detection Technology. The latter can detect malware in real-time using AI, says Intel. On the NPU, Intel announced support for CrowdStrike Falcon Data Protection, using the onboard AI capabilities to protect sensitive data during agentic AI workloads (we’ve certainly seen those workloads go wrong in the past). Finally, Intel is extending the servicing window for Core Ultra Series 3 machines with vPro to 10 years.

Intel says it has over 125 designs for Panther Lake machines that support vPro, including the usual names like Acer, Asus, Dell, and HP, alongside more commercial-focused OEMs like Fujitsu, Panasonic Connect, and Dynabook. Designs start rolling out on March 31.

Intel's 2026 roadmap is unlike any the company has published in recent years, because its manufacturing ambitions and its product launches have to succeed simultaneously.

Panther Lake, the Core Ultra Series 3 laptop processor unveiled at CES in January, is the first consumer chip built on Intel 18A — the company's new process node combining RibbonFET GAA transistors with PowerVia backside power delivery. Clearwater Forest, the next-generation Xeon E-core server CPU formally introduced March 3 at MWC 2026, is the server counterpart to it, and both are proof points for a foundry business that Intel has publicly stated could not justify proceeding to its next node, 14A, without first securing a major external customer.

Meanwhile, Intel is currently shipping the AI data center chip Gaudi 3, which has been available through cloud partners since late 2024. The chip was supposed to be followed by Falcon Shores, but Intel cancelled it for commercial release and confirmed it would deploy the chip internally instead, redirecting its GPU roadmap toward inference workloads. That produced Crescent Island, an inference-focused data center GPU which is expected to enter customer testing in the second half of 2026, with a potential successor in ‘Jaguar Shores’, due 2027.

Meteor Lake to Nova Lake

Since 2023, Intel's consumer CPU roadmap has focused on architectural consolidation, including the abandonment of the monolithic die. Meteor Lake, which launched in December 2023 as the first Core Ultra series processor, moved Intel's consumer laptop chips onto Intel 4 with Foveros 3D packaging, splitting compute, graphics, SoC, and I/O functions across separate tiles connected via hybrid bonding. That was an inflection point, with every subsequent generation iterating on that foundation rather than departing from it.

Then came Lunar Lake, the Core Ultra 200V series that launched in September 2024, which Intel hailed as its most power-efficient x86 platform, targeting the Copilot+ PC category with a fourth-generation NPU and the debut of the Xe2 graphics architecture. Arrow Lake followed in October 2024 as the desktop counterpart under the Core Ultra 200S branding.

While both share the multi-tile approach, they diverge at the process level. Arrow Lake consumer parts don’t use Intel 20A; Intel publicly confirmed the decision to use external nodes instead — almost certainly from TSMC — for the consumer desktop line. Intel originally said that 20A would be the node that would introduce RibbonFET and PowerVia, but the company moved those technologies to 18A instead and treated 20A as a stepping stone it bypassed for production.

Panther Lake, announced at CES in January 2026 as Core Ultra Series 3, is the first client platform built on Intel 18A. Intel cited over 200 system designs in development across laptop partners, alongside a claimed 60% better multi-threaded performance versus Lunar Lake at similar power, and up to 180 total platform TOPS — 120 of which come from the Xe3 integrated GPU and 50 from the NPU 5 architecture. Those figures are Intel estimates tied to specific workloads and comparison generations; the NPU alone meets Microsoft's 40 TOPS threshold for Copilot+ PC certification, but the 180 TOPS figure reflects all three compute engines combined.

Nova Lake is next, with Intel's Q4 2025 earnings guidance initially targeting an end-of-2026 launch. This, as we understand, is likely to be delayed to 2027; process node and die configuration details remain unconfirmed, and it’s far too early to speculate given that the upcoming Arrow Lake refresh (Core Ultra 200K Plus) is still to come.

Xeon and data center CPUs

Xeon 6 formalized a split Intel had been building toward for several years: P-core variants targeted at compute-intensive and AI inference workloads, and E-core variants aimed at density, throughput-per-watt, and scale-out workloads like containerized cloud infrastructure.

Sierra Forest launched in June 2024 as the first Intel 3 server product. Its E-core design packs a high thread count into a constrained thermal envelope, making it well-suited for high-density rack deployments. Granite Rapids, the P-core counterpart, followed in September 2024, targeting scientific computing, high-performance databases, and AI inference on large models. Both families share a common platform foundation — a unified I/O die connected via EMIB packaging — which reduces platform churn for OEMs and provides a validation reuse advantage across derivative SKUs.

Meanwhile, Clearwater Forest, introduced March 3 at MWC 2026, is Intel's first 18A server CPU. Expected to be released later this year, the chip packs 288 Darkmont E-cores across 12 compute chiplets in its maximum configuration, each with 24 cores all built on 18A. Those compute tiles are stacked on three active base dies fabricated on Intel 3 using Foveros Direct 3D, while two I/O tiles on Intel 7 handle connectivity, and lateral integration across the package is handled by EMIB.

EMIB 3.5D then extends this further by combining those Foveros-stacked modules with Intel's second-generation EMIB bridges — scaled from 55-micron to 45-micron bump pitch — to link heterogeneous tiles laterally across the package, whether those are identical compute modules or disparate I/O and memory dies. The result is a package whose total silicon area far exceeds what a conventional silicon interposer could accommodate. A clean Clearwater Forest launch would therefore validate both Intel 18A and its advanced packaging simultaneously.

Finally, Diamond Rapids will arrive as an exclusively 16-channel platform after Intel cancelled the 8-channel SKUs that were originally planned for the Xeon 7 lineup. The remaining parts are expected to pack up to 192 P-cores across four compute tiles in an LGA9324 package, with 2nd-generation MRDIMM support pushing memory bandwidth to roughly 1.6 TB/s — nearly double Granite Rapids' ~844 GB/s. Intel has indicated a 2H 2026 launch window, but has said nothing more solid at this stage.

AI accelerators

Intel’s AI accelerator portfolio hasn’t followed as clean a generational progression as its CPUs have. Gaudi 3, as previously mentioned, is the current shipping product and has been available through cloud partners and direct customers since late 2024, with Intel expanding availability throughout 2025.

Intel has marketed Gaudi 3 around openness and software portability, with the argument being that customers locked into Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem face procurement and pricing constraints that a chip running on open frameworks like PyTorch and oneAPI can avoid. While this has let the chip find some traction, Gaudi 3 hasn’t achieved a meaningful share in large-scale training clusters where Nvidia’s accelerators still dominate by a huge margin.

The most concrete successor to Gaudi 3 in the near-term is Crescent Island, which Intel announced as an inference-focused data center GPU in October 2025 at the OCP Global Summit, with customer sampling due to begin in the second half of 2026. The card is built on the Xe3P architecture, a performance-enhanced version of the Xe3 GPU used in Panther Lake, and carries 160 GB of LPDDR5X memory.

That memory choice is a deliberate departure from the HBM stacks used by Nvidia and AMD in their high-end accelerators: Intel is positioning Crescent Island as a power- and cost-optimized part for air-cooled enterprise servers, with Intel CTO Sachin Katti citing "tokens-as-a-service" providers as the primary target. No performance figures have been disclosed.

When and if it does sample later this year, it will be going up against AMD's Instinct MI450 and Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture, both of which use HBM4 and target a broader range of workloads. Crescent Island's narrower inference focus could make it competitive on cost-per-token, but the 160GB LPDDR5X configuration offers substantially less memory bandwidth than HBM-based competitors, which remains the main bottleneck for large model inference.

Jaguar Shores, meanwhile, has been confirmed by Intel as a product, though technical details about it remain sparse. Intel products chief Michelle Johnston Holthaus stated during the company's Q1 2025 earnings call that Jaguar Shores remains on the AI roadmap despite the cancellation of its predecessor, Falcon Shores, and described it as a rack-scale design incorporating silicon photonics interconnects. Intel has also confirmed, via a slide shown at its AI Summit, that Jaguar Shores will carry the Gaudi brand and use HBM4 memory from SK hynix.

Should it launch, Jaguar Shores would be Intel’s first return to HBM-based AI acceleration since Ponte Vecchio, but specifications remain unconfirmed, and we’re very unlikely to see a release until 2027 at the earliest. That would put it up against Nvidia’s Vera Rubin successors and AMD’s Instinct MI500 series — and whether it can be competitive by then depends heavily on software maturity, an area where Intel’s track record in AI acceleration has been consistently weak.

Process nodes and packaging

Intel 4, which debuted with Meteor Lake, was Intel's first EUV-enabled manufacturing node, claiming 21.5% higher frequencies at the same power as Intel 7, or 40% lower power consumption at the same frequency, alongside a 2x transistor density improvement for high-performance libraries. Intel 4 also introduced second-generation Contact-over-Active-Gate, enhanced copper interconnects with cobalt cladding for better performance and electromigration resistance, and doubled MIM capacitance density to reduce voltage droop.

Production ran at Intel's D1 facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, with Fab 34 in Ireland coming online for Intel 4 volume production in late 2023. Notably, only Meteor Lake's compute tile used Intel 4; the graphics, SoC, and I/O tiles were sourced from TSMC and older Intel nodes, reflecting the limited scope of Intel 4 as a chiplet-specific node.

Intel 3 followed as an 18% performance-per-watt improvement over Intel 4, with broader EUV usage, improved transistor cells, and both I/O and high-density cell libraries suited for server workloads. Sierra Forest, which launched in June 2024 as the first E-core Xeon 6, was its first flagship product, followed by Granite Rapids with P-cores in September 2024. Unlike Intel 4, Intel 3 was designed as a more general-purpose node from the start, underpinning Intel's server ramp and serving as the base die for Clearwater Forest's heterogeneous packaging.

Intel 20A, meanwhile, was the planned introduction point for RibbonFET and PowerVia in production, and Intel confirmed it entered production readiness in 2024. But Intel also confirmed the decision to shift Arrow Lake consumer parts away from Intel 20A to external nodes. The only logical explanation for this is that Intel concentrated its 20A engineering on proving the key technologies it needed for 18A rather than committing a high-volume product line to an intermediate node.

Every product on Intel's 2026-2028 roadmap runs on Intel 18A, the company's first node to combine RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors with PowerVia backside power delivery. RibbonFET wraps the gate entirely around the channel on all four sides, improving electrostatic control and reducing leakage compared to the FinFET structures Intel used through its 10th Gen era. PowerVia routes power through the back of the silicon wafer, freeing front-side routing resources for signal interconnects. 18A entered high-volume manufacturing in October, but yields remain below profitable levels and, per CFO David Zinsner, will not reach desired cost thresholds until the end of 2026 at the earliest.

Intel 14A, which uses High-NA EUV — which Intel is the first to deploy — remains contingent on securing a major external foundry customer. The good news is that Intel has said it has two prospective customers in the works following early PDK access, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan reckons that firm supplier decisions will be made in the “second half of this year… extending into the first half of 2027.” A lot is riding on these prospective customers, with Intel having publicly discussed the possibility of slowing or cancelling 14A and subsequent nodes if external foundry revenue does not materialize at scale. Without it, the capital expenditure required to develop and ramp leading-edge nodes past 18A will become extremely difficult to justify.

The future of Intel

Whether Clearwater Forest's 2026 launch materializes will be a solid indication of whether 18A performs at the scale Intel has projected, while Panther Lake's rollout through laptop OEMs will test whether 18A volume manufacturing is genuinely ramping up or still constrained to early production quantities.

Meanwhile, any announcement from Intel Foundry on an external customer committing to 18A or beginning 14A engagement could substantially change the economics of Intel’s roadmap.

During the 10nm era, Intel's manufacturing problems were visible and protracted over several years. Today's timeline is more compressed, and Intel’s public milestones — Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest shipping on 18A in close succession — are specific enough to hold the company to account.

While Intel formally introduced its Core Ultra 300-series processors codenamed Panther Lake-H in January, and even with shipments of several SKUs to partners, it has never revealed its die shots. Fortunately, Kurnal-Insights.com (a website ran by @KurnalSalts) has filled the gap and published annotated die shots of all three tiles that make up Intel's Panther Lake-H processor, including the compute tile made on 18A process technology, the Xe3 graphics tile, and the I/O tile.

Panther Lake-H's compute tile (or system-on-chip tile, as Kurnal calls it) integrates four high-performance Cougar Cove cores with 3 MB L2 cache designed to run at up to 5.1 GHz. In addition, the main compute tile also packs eight space-efficient Darkmont cores running at up to 3.8 GHz and four low-power Darkmont cores operating at up to 3.7 GHz. As far as we can tell, there are no physical differences between Darkmont E-core cluster with 4 MB L2 cache and Darkmont LPE-core cluster with 4 MB L2 cache. Yet, the 18 MB L3 cache split into three slices to serve nearby cores faster is located close to the P-core and E-core clusters, far away from the LPE cluster. NPUs — split into three slices — also have their own 4.5 MB of cache.

Splitting L3 and NPUs into slices enables Intel to disable a defective slice without affecting others in a bid to get a sellable die, albeit offering lower performance.

What is interesting is that the 128-bit DDR5/LPDDR5X-9600 memory controller also has an 8MB memory side cache (MSC), which job is to buffer memory traffic and reduce latency/bandwidth pressure when many cores (or other execution units inside the compute tile, such as NPUs) access RAM simultaneously. Panther Lake is not Intel's first use of a memory-side cache–type structure, though earlier concepts (e.g., CrystalWell L4 cache) were implemented in a considerably different way and their purpose has evolved over time. Therefore, we cannot compare Panther Lake's memory side cache to Apple's system-level cache, which acts like the last level cache for the whole SoC, which is not the case with Intel's MSC.

Another interesting feature of the compute tile are the integrated media and display engines. Such an arrangement enables Intel to attach various GPUs and I/O dies while maintaining key functionality inside the compute tile, which provides the company some additional flexibility with CPU configurations.

In general, the compute tile resembles Intel CPUs released in the recent years, which almost certainly means ring bus interconnect. Yet, the SoC tile also has high-performance interfaces that connect to GPU and I/O die tiles.

As for the GPU tile, it integrates 12 Intel Xe3 clusters and 16MB of L2 cache implemented in eight tiles, which again allows Intel to disable faulty GPU clusters or cache tiles to improve yield of sellable chips.

The I/O tile is no less interesting than the SoC tile itself as it carries a Thunderbolt 5 controller along with two TB 5.0 PHYs that occupy a significant part of the die. In addition, the IOD carries a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth controller and appropriate physical interfaces, PCIe 5.0 x4 PHY, two PCIe 4.0 x4 PHYs, and USB PHYs. Perhaps, the IOD is the only Panther Lake's tile that can be binned in a bid to get a sellable die with disabled defective parts. If something breaks here, it most likely means that the whole die must be scrapped.

When Lip-Bu Tan came to Intel last year, he considered stopping the promotion of the company's 18A (1.8nm-class) fabrication technology among potential external customers and making it yet another internal-only node, as he did not believe the manufacturing process made a lot of sense for external clients. Less than a year later, he seems to have changed his mind about the prospects of the fabrication process to a large degree because some external customers expressed interest in 18A-P, a performance-enhanced version of 18A. Yet, Intel admits that 18A continues to suffer from process variability.

"While Lip-Bu was, I think, thinking that we probably should focus on 14A as a foundry node and make 18A really just an internal node, now that we have seen some real progress there, I think he is now starting to recognize that this is actually a good node to offer to external customers as well," said David Zinsner, chief financial officer of Intel, Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2026. "We have been getting some kind of inbound interest in 18A-P as a foundry node. So, I think that is pretty positive."

When Lip-Bu Tan joined Intel in early 2025, both the functional and parametric yields of chips made using 18A were low and unpredictable. As a result, Tan reportedly considered shifting the company's foundry efforts to 14A (1.4nm-class) instead in a bid to focus on large clients who make strategic decisions about production nodes many years in advance and had opted to not use 18A at the time.

Intel made some progress on 18A yields in late 2025, in time to start low-volume production of the company's Core Ultra 300-series 'Panther Lake' CPU tiles at a development facility in Oregon while beginning to ramp high-volume manufacturing at its Fab 32 in Arizona. Intel admitted that 18A yields were only set to reach industry standard levels in 2027, but insisted that it was on the right trajectory. While it may indeed be on the right trajectory, Intel still suffers from process variability (though again, we do not know whether Intel means functional or parametric yields, though the latter is more likely), which is typical for early stages of HVM ramp.

"There is a lot of volatility, […] some wafers are yielding a lot less and some are yielding a lot more," Zinsner said. "[Tan] is actually focused a lot on trying to minimize the volatility wafer to wafer, and we have made good improvement there. […] I think we would expect a pretty steady yield progression as we go through this year, probably a bit ahead of schedule."

If wafer-to-wafer parametric variation is high but improving, this is not something unusual, especially keeping in mind that Intel's 18A introduces gate-all-around RibbonFET transistors and backside power delivery, two previously unknown technologies. However, depending on how significant process variability is, parametric yield volatility creates capacity unpredictability, which makes supply planning hard. As a result, it is not surprising that Intel's CEO thought about ceasing the promotion of 18A as a foundry node, as the company did not have visibility on when it could offer it to external customers without creating supply constraints for itself.

Based on the recent rumors, a number of big fabless chip designers have evaluated Intel's 18A and 18A-P process technologies, though none have made any publicly-announced commitments to use the node. Nevertheless, it is possible that at least some of America's chip developers may outsource production of some of their non-core products to Intel in the coming years to increase production of their silicon in the U.S. to reduce their geopolitical risks associated with Taiwan and potential tariffs on chips made outside of America.

Back at CES 2026, Intel teased Panther Lake for handhelds, choosing to hand off the details to its partners rather than reveal what's to come. Dubbed "Core G3" according to leaks, these will be a dedicated series of chips powering next-gen gaming handhelds, meant to succeed Lunar Lake designs. Previously, the launch window for Core G3 was set for the end of Q1 2026, but new reports point to a delay until the second quarter.

Through leaks, rumors, and official confirmations, we know that handhelds featuring PTL silicon will be somewhat custom. The chips won't be 1:1 with off-the-shelf parts; instead, they'll be tweaked variants aimed at competing with AMD's Z2 series. Videocardz has reported that Intel will be using the "484" silicon for at least two SKUs, referred to as midrange offerings.

The first is the base model Core G3 featuring the Arc B360 iGPU with 10 Xe3 cores, then there's the upgraded "Core G3 Extreme" model housing the Arc B380 iGPU with the full-fat 12 Xe3 cores. Either chip will reportedly have 14 CPU cores (2P + 8E + 4LP) and similar base/boost clocks, with only a 100 MHz difference between the two. The power envelope is currently unknown.

Both of the aforementioned B360 and B380 iGPUs haven't been announced yet, so there's speculation that they'll debut alongside the Core G3 series when it launches in Q2 2026. Intel showcased several OEMs, including MSI, Acer, GPD, and OneXPlayer, at its press event at CES, so we should get a wide variety of devices soon. Right now, though, everything is basically subject to change given the volatility of the PC industry.

The main competition for these chips, AMD's Ryzen Z2 series, has been called "ancient silicon" by Intel. AMD's rebuttal pointed out PTL's jack-of-all-trades approach, compared to Team Red's more targeted, segmented mobile lineup, which features Strix Point (now Gorgon Point), Strix Halo, and Fire Range. The Blue Team holds an efficiency advantage but doesn't scale well with power, according to AMD.

So far, Intel's handhelds featuring Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake chips have fared decently well, so Panther Lake's significant graphical leaps should help foster some intense competition. To be clear, Intel has always said Panther Lake for handhelds was coming "later this year," rather than announcing a concrete release date, so this new report is just building on older ones.

Panther Lake is arguably Intel's most important release in the past few years with significant gains made in the graphics department, in particular. The company wants to ensure that the new Arc B370 and Arc B390 iGPUs inside these chips perform to their fullest potential, which is why it has reportedly mandated the use of fast memory on high-end Panther Lake SKUs.

According to popular leaker Golden Pig Upgrade, Intel has set 7,467 MT/s as the minimum requirement for LPDDR5X RAM accompanying Panther Lake chips. Any slower and the impressive integrated graphics will be covertly relabeled to just "Intel Graphics" in Task Manager.

That means even if you have a flagship device with the maxed out 12 Xe3 GPU cores — available in the Arc B390 — it won't actually show up as that, at least in Task Manager. The top-end Core Ultra X9 388H features the Arc B390 iGPU, along with the Core Ultra X7 368H and Core Ultra X7 358H. The midrange Core Ultra 5 338H is powered by an Arc B370 iGPU instead, which features 10 Xe cores.

The rest of the chips are marketed as having generic Intel Graphics anyway, with no proper designation for their iGPUs. So, not following Intel's mandate for fast memory will essentially downgrade you to those offerings instead; not literally, but in a anti-piracy DRM countermeasure sort of way. You'll retain the high-end performance you paid for, but without the brandishing.

That being said, integrated graphics are still reliant on shared system memory and slower RAM will negatively affect bandwidth, potentially lowering those sweet FPS numbers. Therefore, it's not just a marketing tactic, but instead a genuine effort to curb vendors from cutting corners where it matters most. The Blue Team simply doesn't want Panther Lake's biggest selling point to be undermined.

Most OEMs do work closely with Intel to fine-tune their products and bring them up to spec, but smaller manufacturers can slip under the radar. Given the soaring RAM prices, there's a high chance companies might try to under-equip these machines to save costs. This is where Intel's requirement will ensure you're getting exactly what was advertised, without any sneaky part-swapping under the hood.

Following Intel's keynote at CES 2026, where it formally launched consumer Panther Lake products, our resident CPU reporter Jake Roach attended a press Q&A at CES in Las Vegas, featuring some of the senior staff behind Intel's Panther Lake architecture. The following article is a transcript of that Q&A session. We've edited some elements for flow and clarity, and have made notes where we couldn't quite make out what was being said. As speakers did not introduce themselves at the beginning of our transcript, we have denoted them as Journalists, denoted in the sequence that they spoke in.

Some highlights include Intel being particularly proud of making the lineup significantly easier to understand, combining the benefits of Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake, while also making fewer SKU denotations, making the lineup easier to parse as a whole. Additionally, while Intel did not announce any EVO processors at CES 2026, the company is still keeping the brand alive, with 'stricter' qualifications in place for the future.

Ahead of reading this press Q&A session, be sure to familiarize yourself with all the elements of Intel's new Panther Lake architecture by checking out some of our coverage, or watch the keynote yourself below.

So, now that you've learnt a little bit more about what Panther Lake offers, here's our full, slightly edited press Q&A session. This session was around 25 minutes long, and while recording in a noisy, ambient environment, some things can get lost in the audio mix, and have been denoted as such in the copy.

Shalini Singh: Hi. My name is Shalini, Technical Marketing, Intel CCG (Client Computing Group, with me, Damien, who leads technical marketing as well. [laughs]

Damien Triloet: Yep, Technical Marketing, a lot of time spent on graphics and [inaudible]

Mitch Lum: I'm Mitch Lum, I'm the Product Manager for both Core Ultra Series 3 and Core Series 4.

Client Product Team Lead: I'm [inaudible], I lead the client product team.

Journalist 1: So, my first question is, you guys are using a lot of panthers in the presentation. It was nice. And we are used to [having], like, the codename. And when we have the product, the codename disappears. You guys don't use the code name anymore just presenting the unique architecture [...] But you guys are using a lot of panthers in design. [...] Are you guys using [Panthers] to represent this generational product for clients? The guys actually buying the product?

Client Product Team Lead: I was just gonna say, you did see the panther walk away. We will focus on [the naming convention of] Core Ultra Series 3.

Shalini Singh: Like previously, [you] will see many places where we'll continue to use the codename. Then there's just no going behind it. But the brand police will come to us and tell us "you always have to use the [inaudible] Core Ultra 3 [laughs]."

Mitch Lum: What's your advice?

Journalist 1: I know it's easier to understand names when it's just a numeral sequence, you know? But you can see how it's easy to identify this. Oh, this is a new thing. This is the Panther thing, and whatever the next thing is, the new codename [...] and you can [...] see the difference in generations this way as well. It's a good visual representation of the product.

Damien Triolet: It's a good visual representation of the product.

Journalist 1: Yeah, especially when [it's] a nice thing, a panther is a cool thing. So if you're using cool things as code names, maybe it works.

Shalini Singh: And also, for you guys, after you've seen so many panthers, it's difficult to unsee it.

Journalist 1: I mean, I mean, 300 series, 400 series. I can see where this is going, but it's a number. It's not as cool, I guess.

Client Product Team Lead: Oh yeah, we'll have it in the [press pack] that will look different, so that there'll be all the retail differentiators, and in any tech related areas, you'll see it's called call out as Panther Lake, but in end user facing [materials and assets] is going to be Core Ultra Series 3, Series 4. So, that's the least offensive way of describing the products, and I could keep going. But they'll have codenames.

Journalist 2: Do you guys see any sort of ripple effects from the ongoing price hikes, with RAM and storage as an example, like [...] Copilot+ PCs, I believe, have a minimum spec of 32 gigabytes [this is not correct, and was quickly clarified as a 16GB requirement]. So if that's true, does that affect the sales of AI PCs or Copilot PCs, going into the new year?

Client Product Team Lead: So in general, a lot of the OEMs, and you can talk to them in detail, they plan for nine months to 12 months in terms of allotment of their [products] so in the beginning through towards the end of the year, I think a lot of them are going to be reasonably okay in terms of memory. But, in general, we have to wait and see. It's like, if we can predict the memory prices, we would all also invest in the stock market, that kind of thing. So it is going to be a challenge, which we are carefully monitoring and trying to work as much as we can closely [presumably meaning with OEMs].

Journalist 3: Are we really going to be seeing developers using [inaudible, but the question pertains to AI TOPS and NPU performance]

Damien Triolet: One interesting detail about NPU 5 is that our first [inaudible, potentially Blackwell?] compatible, and PYP. So it will help developers move the roles they've done on NPU 4, and then keep investing into NPU so we see increasing traction.

Client Product Team Lead: A lot of the time, we want to make sure they're using the right engine for the right workload. So from an Intel perspective, it's not just about the NPU. AI means it's the GPU, NPU, and CPU. So as long as they're using the right engine, we're good. And from an NPU 5 perspective, our biggest thing was we shrunk it down in size so that we can fit a lot more inside Panther Lake. So from Lunar Lake to Panther Lake, the peak TOPS, it's fairly similar.

Mitch Lum: It's 40% more die area, if you think about Lunar Lake and the kinds of systems that it went into. Now we're going into many more kinds of laptops, and we wanted to make sure that we had that scalability.

Shalini Singh: But, it's probably the only x86 product to have fully featured XPU engines to run a performance GPU. You will not see that from any of our competitors.

Damien Triolet: And you will see that in the mlperf data that we have in the project, you should have a look later. When you look at the way our different engine, GPU and NPU, behaves in approach like LLM are very consistent. Both engines have, like, full access, memory bandwidth, a ton of compute for AI. That's not something you will see on the company's source product. They will either have the GPU enable something, or the NPU enable something. We fully enable both of them. And this gives a niche set [of tools] to developers [offering] the flexibility to target the right engine, for the right competitors.

Shalini Singh: In most cases, when they don't have either the fully labeled GPU or the NPU. They even have hybrid solutions, CPU plus NPU. You probably know that, right. But our GPU and NPU solutions in most cases [inaudible].

Journalist 4: I also expect this will require all four of you to answer. Why did you add X to the names?

Client Product Team Lead: In terms of X's, there was [...] strong retail feedback. There are 12 [Xe3 cores]. They needed an easy way for customers walking to be able to identify that. So those [products with X in the name] will have the 12 Xe [cores], the bigger graphics, Arc graphics. So that is an easy way to identify that.

Shalini Singh: It's also the highest-end config. So most of the data that you see in the press deck will be based on that config.

Tom's Hardware: I have two questions focused on the Ultra 5 range. First, we know the core split for the eight-core configurations, and the 16-core configurations. I'm just wondering what the core split is for the 12-core configurations. And then there is a core Ultra 5 that has 10 Xe3 cores in it, but it didn't get that Core Ultra X5 branding, and I'm just wondering why that's the case.

Mitch Lum: Yeah, so, on that one, the 10 xe3 [cores], it [has] our B370. There's B390, it's 12 Xe, 370 is 10 Xe. We wanted to make sure it was really clear with the X designation that we were really referring to our top configuration, which is the B390. So that's the first piece. And then I think your second question was that [Core] Ultra 5, we've got a 12-core configuration. That's 4P, 4E and 4LP-E.

Journalist 4: I had a question on the Xe cores and the GPU. Now, are you finding most of your improvements from just increasing the number of cores? Or, were the cores redesigned? And what sort of improvements are you seeing internally today?

Damien Triolet: So the bigger part of the improvement is coming from a larger configuration. But as you've seen, some of the general numbers that we share is over 70% so there's obviously a little bit more coming to that. There's a clock increase, that's part of it, and then the IP improvements, as we've detailed, at ITT if you were there.

Mitch Lum: And, also the bigger cache, so the GPU has a bigger cache.

Client Product Team Lead: 50% more cores, double the amount of cache.

Journalist 5: Yes, you guys told us that on stage, that Panther Lake [has] 15% better performance per watt compared to last year's chips. How is that translated in real use cases, like how many more hours [of battery life] people can have on their laptops?

Shalini Singh: We expect to deliver Lunar Lake level efficiency. The exact battery life translation will obviously depend on the overall design. It depends on the display, the battery capacity, [and] other components that they will have on the PC. But in most cases, at the most when we when we measure power at the SOC level, Panther Lake is more efficient than Lunar Lake.

So we are seeing power savings compared to Lunar Lake itself. If you have one, or if you tested it, you probably know it's really good on battery life. So Panther Lake is very similar, and so it's basically a combination; Lunar Lake efficiency and Arrow Lake performance, right?

So, you'll see about a 60% increase in multithreaded performance, battery life, and all the SOC, power savings are going to translate to a similar to better battery life [when] compared to what you had in Lunar Lake, because it also has a [higher] number of cores. So there's going to be a little bit of a balance there.

Mitch Lum: There was the 15% number from the very beginning of the keynote, when we were talking about process technology. [...] I think that was specifically comparing at a transistor level, 18A transistor performance per hour, versus [the previous generation].

Client Product Team Lead: The Lunar [to] Arrow numbers would be much higher. It's in the press deck [inaudible].

Shalini Singh: Yeah, you'll see that in the press deck. Basically, we're delivering similar performance [to] both Lunar and Arrow at 40% lower power. So [in] Arrow Lake, obviously, there is a big efficiency [gain] to be had, versus Arrow Lake, but even versus Lunar Lake, like you said, was quite good as it is. To be able to drive the efficiency further was amazing.

Journalist 5: So I was really impressed with the integrated graphics FPS [...] so I guess my question is; Do you see [integrated graphics] being kind of the future of gaming laptops, not needing that GPU anymore because you have [...] more efficiency, less heat... How do you guys see the industry moving?

Client Product Team Lead: At the highest level, I mean, this is more like the [entry-level], right? Similar to [the RTX 4050]. Clearly, there is a lot higher [power] discrete graphics, mobile display graphics available.

So, we don't see that going away anytime soon. That said, this is the first step in terms of getting to that discrete graphics level. And over time, there is going to be also creation where a lot of AI systolics in that integrated graphics [segment] is going to help. So we see this as a new breed of things that we want to build and see where AI is going to enable [Intel] to take it to another level... But in the near future? It's not going to go away. You will still see discrete graphics.

Shalini Singh: No, just to add, basically, you know, we do expect this level of graphics performance to be able to replace entry-level discrete cards, right? In some cases, even something a little bit more than that, like a 4050, like 4060, whatever. But yes, like he said, the high-end, we don't expect that to go anywhere. So those will continue to be there, but [Intel will] absolutely challenge the entry [level] domain.

Mitch Lum: And we will have Core Ultra Series 3 laptops that have big discrete graphics in them [inaudible].

Damien Triolet: As Shani mentioned, at the entry level for discrete, it is a good point for integration, for the simple reason that memory capacity for entry-level discrete is relatively limited, and more modern workloads require way more memory. So integration is a thing about how to get more accessible at that.

Client Product Team Lead: Speaking of the previous question on memory shortages... [laughs]

Journalist 6: So is Arc built into the entire [Core Ultra] Series 3 components?

Mitch Lum: There are some SKUs that are Intel graphics, and then there are some SKUs that are Arc.

Journalist 6: What about Iris, is that Intel Graphics?

Mitch Lum: Iris is a brand that we EOL'd.

Journalist 6: Is that dead?

Mitch Lum: Yeah, we end-of-life'd that brand... probably three generations ago.

Journalist 6: I'm really up to speed on that, I was asking for a friend [laughs]

Client Product Team Lead: Just to the previous point, that 'X' is there for that reason. Anything with an 'X', like X9 [or] X7, is going to have Arc integrated graphics.

Mitch Lum: So if it doesn't, there's no Arc.

Client Product Team Lead: It'll be Intel Graphics, the 4 Xe version of the...[inaudible]

Mitch Lum: There's one nuance of that at the Core Ultra 5 level with the 10 Xe/ B370, the one place you might see that is in mobile workstations.

Damien Triolet: The smaller, non-Arc Intel graphics are using exactly the same technology, but [with a] smaller configuration, because of the smaller...

Journalist 6: The same as Arc, or Iris?

Damien Triolet: The same as Arc. Between Arc and Intel Graphics on Core Ultra Series 3 is the same technology. A smaller configuration on Intel graphics, and because of that, you're not going to get the type of experience that we want to be part of the Intel Arc [product line]. We want a certain level of performance to define.

Mitch Lum: So we bifurcated. There's a 4 Xe native configuration, and 12 Xe... Because not everybody needs that 'Arc' level of performance. If you think about your general purpose IT machine not doing a lot of 3D rendering.

So, customers have said, "Hey, can we get something that has more modest graphics", or systems that are putting in discrete graphics [...] So, on Intel Graphics, you're just running Office and that kind of stuff. I mean, you can actually run games at like, okay, [framerates], but it's just not really [something to] write home to your friends about.

Client Product Team Lead: So all the IPs in terms of the system. IPs, in terms of systolic AI [...] are still very powerful AI engines. So, it will be used for a lot of AI use-cases, and all the other basic graphics.

Tom's Hardware: I just want to clarify, it's Xe3 across the board, right?

Mitch Lum: Yes, absolutely.

Journalist 6: One of the numbers that jumped out was the battery savings [while] streaming, or energy efficiency. Can you shed a little more light on those processes? And, how much was there [inaudible].

Shalini Singh: Basically, the way we measured it... the process was simple. We just did a pure rundown, right? Just ran the workload until the time the laptop died.

Journalist 6: [What about] the engineering process behind getting that efficiency?

Damien Triolet: Part of the role [...] on the engineering side was to make the communication between the different engines, the media engine, the CPU, the display engine, more efficient. And, for example, when we do a lot of the video processing, we don't need to activate the GPU part at all. The media engine can communicate directly with the display engine. And these are the types of things that we use to reduce...

Mitch Lum: Architectural [changes] impacts graphics. Media and display would be a consolidated tile. Now, our graphics tile is for rendering and the [inaudible], whereas we have display and media on the actual compute tile, so you can power the IP that you don't even need at all, much more power efficiently.

Client Product Team Lead: and also, [regarding] the overall architecture, your P-Cores... Now we have [them] in the performance cluster, which has access to L3 cache, so when you need to balance power, you don't always default to the P-cores. You can run it on the E-cores. And we also bring the Lunar Lake efficiency cluster with it. So a lot of those are just building on all the technologies which we already have. And we are also doubling down on some platform technology. So Intel Intelligent Display [and] Intel Wi-Fi cut [a] significant amount of power when it runs. So all of those are going to be exclusive to Intel platforms, and they help displays a big part of [inaudible].

Shalini Singh: The low-power island basically adds to what he's saying. We started this journey back with Meteor Lake. [...] You know, the low-power island had 2 E-Cores, then with Lunar, we had doubled the quantity, and we had four [E-cores in Lunar Lake]. This time, we have eight [total E-cores, including LP-E]. So it's continuing to be like a significant portion, where workloads can now be sustained on that low-power island.

Journalist 7: Usually, we have a process watch, will we hear a little about EVO?

Client Product Team Lead: Yes. Short answer. In this generation, [...] our focus is going to be more quality than quantity. So there will be less EVO devices, but we will have stricter specs to showcase the best.

Journalist 7: You said, stricter, stricter, KPIs, like, what do they exactly look like?

Client Product Team Lead: Like in terms of resolution, in terms of battery life [...] instead of having two different cut-off points [For EVO SKUs], there will be [fewer] exceptions.

Journalist 8: When you guys were doing the comparisons between Lunar and Panther Lake, you said 77% faster gaming and 60% for other stuff, but we looked into the small print, it says that you're comparing the V SKUs to other H SKUs. One's more GPU efficient, one's more AI efficient, so [inaudible]

Damien Triolet: So if you go to the press deck, you're gonna see the comparison between all of them, right? In the keynote, we simplified. We take a few points. In general, you will see that both AI and gaming are faster [in Panther Lake SKUs] than the previous generation. The 70% plus [performance uplift in Panther Lake] for gaming, for example, applies to both Arrow Lake H and Lunar Lake, so you will see the same type of improvements. On AI in general, the improvement versus Alder Lake H is higher than versus Lunar Lake, especially on the NPU side. In Lunar, we're already at a relatively large NPU.

Mitch Lum: And maybe implicit to your question is the PL setting. So when we compare [the] Core Ultra Series Three versus the 288V. It's at 25 watts.

Shalini Singh: It's basically peak performance, right? So Lunar Lake's peak performance was about 25 to 30 watts.

Mitch Lum: So we compared it, apples to apples. So 25 watts versus Lunar Lake, 45 watts versus Arrow Lake.

Client Product Team Lead: And this is where the core name versus the [inaudible] company, all of Lunar Lake had the V-series. Arrow Lake had H. So when we compare talking Lunar Lake, it's always going to be V. right, and then that's why Damien said we have both numbers in the press deck, you'll see some Arrow Lake H.

Journalist 8: So all of these [CPUs] that are announced today, H?

Client Product Team Lead: We have H and non-H. So in Panther Lake, there are products that have an H, and there [are] products without an H suffix.

Journalist 8: Okay, what [are] the ones without the suffix?

Shalini Singh: You just have a number. You do not have [an] H. But think about it this way, the product transition for Panther Lake is basically [that] there were two products we announced last year, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, right? Arrow Lake was generally for higher performance, more cores, at a little bit of a higher PL1 (sustained power limit). Lunar Lake was more [about] power efficiency, battery life, good performance, and a lower power level. Both of those are basically transitioning to Panther Lake this year. So whether Yes, so whether you go with the suffix or...

Journalist 8: Why do you guys make this so confusing? So, now this series will have H, and...

Shalini Singh: Non-H. We're not doing any more V-series.

Journalist 8: [...] There's no more HX?

Client Product Team Lead: HX is in a higher category. [...] So the way to think about it is, U,V,Y,H, all of this creates an overlapping power level. With Panther Lake, we are going at a similar TDP. So all of Panther Lake starts at 15, and goes to 45 or 65 [Watts] depending on the SKUs. So what we did is we tried to simplify it, and in that range, you just have H or no [H suffix], that's it. So you don't have any more V's, no Y's, no U's. [...]

Mitch Lum: Just to tie up on that, so the parts with no suffix are basically eight-core based. You know how we show the die package combination? Those are eight-core based, the 16-core base all starts with H, so that's how you know you get more [inaudible].

Tom's Hardware: So, on gaming performance [of Panther Lake], you were comparing to Arrow Lake H, which I believe is not at ISO power...

Shalini Singh: It is.

Tom's Hardware: Is that ISO at 45?

Shalini Singh: Yes, 45. We're actually comparing to Arrow [Lake], we're comparing to Lunar [Lake], we're also comparing to Nvidia.

Tom's Hardware: Do you have numbers at peak power, for 115 [Watts] on Arrow Lake H, compared to 65 [Watts] on...

Shalini Singh: No, we're doing it at sustained PL1. So, 45 to 45, 45 to 25, and then for the competition, whatever their out-of-the-box sustained power is.

Tom's Hardware: Yeah, I was just curious for efficiency.

Client Product Team Lead: Arrow Lake H peak power, as in the high-end PL1 is 55...

Tom's Hardware: Max turbo?

Client Product Team Lead: 110 et cetera, will be the system power, if you're putting in discrete graphics. The CPU itself is 55 [this is incorrect, as many Panther Lake SKUs have PL1 of 65W].

[Session ends]

Stay tuned to Tom's Hardware Premium, where we'll be posting much more from CES 2026 over the coming days.

President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick went on social media to praise Intel and its CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, after the successful launch of the Panther Lake processors. Trump called Tan “the very successful Intel CEO” on his social media platform, saying that the 10% stake the White House took in Intel is already showing a good return for the government. Both the president and Lutnick also mentioned how the company is helping the U.S. regain its lead in cutting-edge chip manufacturing.

“The United States Government is proud to be a Shareholder of Intel, and has already made, through its U.S.A. ownership position, Tens of Billions of Dollars for the American People — IN JUST FOUR MONTHS,” the U.S. president said on Truth Social. “We made a GREAT Deal, and so did Intel. Our Country is determined to bring leading edge Chip Manufacturing back to America, and that is exactly what is happening!!!” The Commerce Secretary also posted on X, “Just four months after the United States invested in Intel, that investment is already delivering tens of billions in value for the American people. That momentum continues with Intel’s new 1.8-nanometer processor, a major step in bringing semiconductor manufacturing back home.”

Intel has been struggling in the past year, with the company announcing a disastrous quarterly report in July 2024, resulting in a $39 billion drop in market cap overnight. It has resulted in thousands of layoffs, with Pat Gelsinger unexpectedly retiring in December 2024. He was replaced by Lip-Bu Tan in March 2025, who had some controversies relating to his past leadership of Cadence, leading to Trump calling on him to resign from his position.

However, Tan was able to turn things around when he visited the White House and talked to the president, which led to the $8.9-billion investment in the company in August. This was followed by a massive deal in September, in which Nvidia announced it was purchasing $5 billion worth of Intel stock while working alongside it to develop x86 RTX SOCs for PCs. This announcement led to a 25% increase in stock price overnight, with Intel keeping up its momentum with the launch of Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips at CES 2026, which used its cutting-edge 18A node.

Intel’s latest chips seem to be promising, with initial reports showing increased gaming performance from its integrated GPU that can match discrete RTX 4050 graphics cards. Pre-release testing also showed that it can hit 80 fps in Cyberpunk and 100 fps in F1, but the software still needs a bit more tweaking. Aside from its chip consumer business, the company also needs to break even in its foundry business, which isn’t expected to happen until 2027 with the Intel 14A node. Nevertheless, the success of the Intel 18A node is another step in the right direction for the company. In remarks at CES 2026, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Intel is "going big time into 14A."

Although Intel's focus for this year's CES is to introduce its Core Ultra 3-series 'Panther Lake' processors and laptops, the company's chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan, still used the tradeshow to talk about 14A (1.4nm-class) process technology and reassure potential clients and investors that its development is proceeding well. The CEO's bullish statements marked a sharp reversal from his statements in July that the company would pause or discontinue the node if it didn't secure a customer.

"We are going big time into 14A," said Lip-Bu Tan in an Intel News video on X. "Stay tuned, we are going to see a lot of great momentum on the 14A in terms of yields [and] IP portfolio to serve the customer well."

Intel's 14A is expected to be production-ready in 2027, with early versions of process design kit (PDK) coming to external customers early this year. To that end, it is good to hear Intel’s upbeat comments about 14A. Also, Tan’s phrasing ‘the customer’ (plural) indicates that Intel has more than one client for 14A, implying that Intel Foundry will produce 14A chips for Intel Products and at least one more buyer.

Previously, Intel issued a warning that if it fails to gain at least one big external customer for 14A, it may 'pause or discontinue' its development, essentially leaving the leading-edge process technology race. From what we hear from Lip-Bu Tan now, it looks like the company has no plans to abandon or delay 14A development.

It goes without saying that Intel's 18A fabrication technology — which is used to make the compute tile of Panther Lake processors — is an important manufacturing process for Intel in the sense that it introduces gate-all-around (GAA) RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery network (BSPDN). However, 14A is by all means no less important because it builds on top of what the company will learn 18A. The 14A production node will introduce Intel's 2nd Generation RibbonFET GAA transistors; 2nd Gen BSPDN called PowerDirect that will connect power directly to source and drain of transistors, enabling better power delivery (e.g., reducing transient voltage droop or clock stretching) and refined power controls; and Turbo Cells that optimize critical timing paths using high-drive, double-height cells within dense standard cell libraries, which boost speed without major area or power compromises.

Yet, there is another aspect of Intel's 14A manufacturing process that is particularly important for the chipmaker: its usage by external customers. With 18A, the company has not managed to land a single major external client that demands decent volumes. While 18A will be used by Intel itself as well as by Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Defense, only Intel will consume significant volumes. For 14A, Intel hopes to land at least one more external customer with substantial volume requirements, as this will ensure that Intel will recoup its investments in the development of such an advanced node.

But there is a major catch. Intel's current capital expenditure (CapEx) plan does not include investments in 14A capacity for third-party clients. Hence, even if Intel lands an order from a major customer (think Apple, AMD, Nvidia, or Qualcomm), it will have to invest in additional capacity, which will delay Intel Foundry reaching the breakeven point.

"When we win a customer for Intel 14A, we will have to layer on expenses well ahead of getting revenue," said John Pitzer, corporate vice president of corporate planning and investor relations at the RBC Capital Markets Global Technology, Internet, Media and Telecommunications (TIMT) Conference in November. "I do think for transparency purposes, as a sort of customer traction materializes, it is likely to push out that end. I am thinking though, most investors will be okay with that because it will be confirmation that we can actually stand up an external foundry."

Contract chipmakers typically discuss upcoming process nodes with customers before capacity exists and add capacity only after early adopters commit. At Intel, this model is different because the Products Group is the main customer, so capacity is built first to meet internal demand. This is especially critical for leading-edge fabs like those for Intel 14A, which require both Low-NA and High-NA EUV tools and other costly equipment. Given the enormous capital expense, foundries cannot afford idle assets, and normally ramp capacity only when utilization is well above 80% is guaranteed.

But offering a process node without available capacity to external customers risks undermining Intel's foundry ambitions. Competitors such as TSMC and Samsung Foundry typically expand fabs with multiple anchor customers already committed and expect additional demand to follow. Since advanced tools like EUV scanners have long lead times, Intel could miss key foundry opportunities if it cannot provide capacity for third-party clients on time.

Intel has finally pulled back the curtain on Panther Lake, and in addition to a major process milestone with 18A, Intel is packing in the largest integrated GPU it has ever shipped in a handful of new X-series SKUs. These SKUs, including the Core Ultra X9 388H that Tom’s Hardware was able to test ahead of release at CES 2026, include 12 cores on Intel’s latest Xe3 graphics architecture and boast performance that can rival a discrete RTX 4050, at least according to Intel’s claims.

Testing the graphics performance in-person, Panther Lake is undoubtedly impressive, not only because of its raw capabilities, but also its clear efficiency. We aren’t able to publish power numbers today, but subjectively, Panther Lake delivered easily the coolest gaming experience I’ve seen out of a laptop, barely even getting warm during an hour and a half of heavy-duty benchmarks in a Lenovo reference design.

The silicon quality and process advancements are obvious, and Intel’s claims aren’t full of hot air. Panther Lake reaches that entry-level segment that Intel is targeting with its X-series parts, and does so with remarkable efficiency. The asterisk is software. Even in the benchmarking session, software issues crept up with a handful of popular titles Intel had pre-installed on the machines, which will only become more pronounced when extended to a larger sample of titles.

We’ll have full test results for Panther Lake once systems arrive on January 27 globally, including firm power and temperature numbers, along with productivity results. For now, we’re looking at some quick and dirty tests in games, along with the experience of using Panther Lake in the flesh.

Meet our Panther Lake test system

Intel set us up with a reference system made by Lenovo. You can see the system information above. This is an IdeaPad Pro 5 running the top-end Core Ultra X9 388H chip from Panther Lake, along with 32GB of memory. For testing, the system was perched on a stand for better airflow, and the games were running off of an external PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD connected via USB-C.

The native resolution for the display is 2880 x 1800, but I ran tests at either 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200 depending on support in-game, along with XeSS upscaling (settings for each will be noted in the benchmarks below). This is in-line with the benchmark data Intel itself has shared on Panther Lake. Keep in mind, however, that upscaling works better with higher output resolutions. You’ll see a performance drop climbing up to native resolution, but with upscaling, the drop isn’t as severe as you’d expect.

Although we can’t publish power results, Intel confirmed that the Core Ultra X9 388H has a maximum turbo power of 65W (PL1) with a short-term limit of 85W (PL2). That’s power for the entire SoC, not just the integrated graphics. The performance results here for the SKUs sporting 12 Xe3 cores; the vast majority of the Panther Lake lineup only includes 4 Xe3 cores, with only the X-series SKUs getting the full 12.

As we dig into the benchmarks, keep in mind the limited time we had available for testing these systems. Most games only got a single benchmark pass as we tried to test as many titles as possible within an hour and a half. You should take the numbers as rough approximations of the performance you can expect ahead of launch, not the final word on the gaming prowess of Panther Lake.

Testing Panther Lake’s gaming performance

Now what you came for — the benchmarks. Broadly, you can expect frame rates nearing 60 fps in recent titles with Panther Lake at 1080p, with some assistance from XeSS upscaling. Multi-frame generation is available in titles that support XeSS 2 or newer through an override in Intel’s driver software. We didn’t look at frame generation when gathering performance results. However, in Spider-Man 2, we quickly looked at FSR frame generation and saw positive results. Given the limited availability of XeSS frame generation, FSR 3 (or newer) seems like the more practical route for frame generation on Panther Lake outside of tools like Lossless Scaling.

We tested two more titles, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Battlefield 6, but we weren’t able to capture performance data; more on that in the next section.

Overall, the average frame rates are solid considering the settings. With upscaling assistance, 60 fps is achievable even in relatively demanding titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, while heavily titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Doom: The Dark Ages fall slightly short of that mark while still providing a smooth experience for an efficient mobile platform. Actually playing a game like Doom: The Dark Ages brought out the experience Intel has been talking about. When you’re playing, the fluctuations below 60 fps aren’t apparent, and the complete lack of heat leads to a mobile gaming experience that’s refreshingly clean. Fan noise wasn't bad, either. In a room with about two dozen people with only a minor murmur, you couldn't hear the fans spinning.

Although the performance holds up, the software backing it has some issues. XeSS works and is available in a broad range of titles, but the quality of the implementation varies wildly. In F1 2025, it can go toe-to-toe with FSR 2 or 3 upscaling; in Cyberpunk 2077, the visual artifacts are immediately apparent. Intel still has a lot of work to do on XeSS, particularly when it comes to unifying the quality you can expect across titles.

We tested Spider-Man 2 with FSR frame generation, XeSS Quality, and 1080p resolution, which you can see the performance of in real-time in the video above. This provided a much better experience and clearly showed off the capabilities of Panther Lake without the drawbacks of Intel’s software ecosystem. Some of those drawbacks are too big to ignore. However, in many titles, moving over to FSR or Lossless Scaling can bring Panther Lake to life in a way that the limited support for XeSS 3 can’t.

The average frame rates are solid, but consistency is a bit different. There were titles where the consistency was great, such as Cyberpunk 2077, while others, like Baldur’s Gate 3, struggle. And there are still games that will prove too demanding for Panther Lake without heavy assistance from both upscaling and frame generation as evidenced by Monster Hunter Wilds.

Questions linger about Intel’s software stack

Intel has done a lot of work stabilising its Arc driver releases, and today, they’re much more robust than what we saw just a few years ago with the initial release of Alchemist GPUs. Still, I have some concerns about the software when it comes to using Panther Lake in a wider swath of games.

In addition to the titles above, we tried to test Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Battlefield 6, both of which we weren’t able to gather data for because Intel’s PresentMon — the monitoring tool available to us for testing — wasn’t able to hook into the game. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also reduced the resolution to just 900p each time we toggled to fullscreen mode; a well-known bug in this game that shows up across GPU vendors.

In areas Intel can more directly influence, there were still issues. Monster Hunter Wilds had an unplayable level of stuttering on the first benchmark pass, while the quality of XeSS in Clair Obscur devolved into a shimmering mess while falling short of a 60 fps average. These, thankfully, aren’t issues in the driver, but it takes the claims about Intel’s all-in-one graphics ecosystem down a peg when looking at the real-world experience.

Although we didn’t focus on frame generation, others in the room did; just behind our station, another journalist spent the better part of 45 minutes troubleshooting Intel’s multi-frame generation overrides in the driver without success. The performance of Panther Lake is solid, and I’m confident in it when combined with tools like FSR and Lossless Scaling. You can expect some bumps in the road if you stay fully within Intel’s ecosystem, however.

That shouldn’t overshadow the impressive performance of Panther Lake. The performance is stunning considering the hardware, and even moreso when factoring in power and temperatures. We’re looking forward to sharing those results with you when we can, but broadly, Intel’s claims about Panther Lake hold up. It’s a relentlessly powerful and efficient SoC that hits a sweet spot few other chips can touch. Hopefully our initial testing results hold up once we can dedicated dozens of hours to putting Panther Lake through the full gauntlet.

After going in-depth on its Panther Lake series CPUs late last year, Intel is finally ready to start rolling them out. At CES 2026, the company announced 14 SKUs to kick off the Core Ultra Series 3 generation, including three SKUs that have the new X9 or X7 designation to note a larger included GPU with 12 Xe3 cores (read our deep dive on the Xe3 graphics architecture).

Intel already revealed the top-line specs for the Panther Lake range in October, but now we have a more comprehensive breakdown of all of the options that will be available later this month. Intel says that Panther Lake systems will be available to preorder tomorrow, January 6, with global availability starting on January 27 and continuing throughout the first half of the year.

If you missed our deep dive on Panther Lake in October, it’s the first range of chips from Intel to use its highly-publicized 18A process. This node brings two innovations that Intel has been talking about for years at this point; gate-all-around (GAA) transistors and a backside power delivery network called PowerVia. The compute tile for Panther Lake chips is built on 18A with a mixture of up to three core types. The compute tile comes with up to four Cougar Cove performance cores, up to eight Darkmont efficiency cores, and up to four low-power Darkmont efficiency cores. Those low-power cores live on what Intel calls a “low-power island,” isolating them from the relatively power-hungry P-cores to improve efficiency on low-lift workloads.

Intel has used this low-power island since it introduced its first disaggregated mobile chips with Meteor Lake, but it wasn’t until Lunar Lake that it brought forth a further “low-power” designation for those cores. Like Lunar Lake, the low-power island in Panther Lake has its own power rail. As we saw in the previous generation, that leads to better battery life, as the chip doesn’t need to tap the main cluster of P-cores and E-cores as often.

Intel hasn’t provided a swath of benchmarks for Panther Lake chips yet, but broadly, it says Panther Lake delivers more than 10% higher single-threaded performance at ISO power, and more than 50% higher multi-threaded performance in the same power envelope compared to Lunar Lake. The massive multi-threaded jump isn’t surprising, however; Lunar Lake topped out with just eight cores, while Panther Lake can scale up to 16.

In addition to the 14 SKUs Intel revealed at CES, it also announced that Panther Lake will eventually make its way all the way to the edge. Intel says it has tested and certified Panther Lake for embedded applications like robotics, automation, and healthcare. Details are sparse about edge implementations of Panther Lake right now, but Intel says embedded systems will begin showing up in the second quarter of 2026.

Intel Core Ultra Series 3 ‘Panther Lake’ specifications

Enough preamble; let’s get to the specs. Intel has 14 SKUs, so the tables below are dense, and there are a few details we’re still waiting on, namely the core split. When looking at core counts, keep in mind that Panther Lake comes with up to four P-cores, eight E-cores, and four low-power E-cores.

Out of the 14 SKUs, three of them carry the new X-series branding, with a single X9 and two X7s. There’s an honorary X5, as well, but Intel isn’t using that nomenclature.

There are only two Core Ultra 9 SKUs, and they’re almost identical short of the graphics. For the first time, Intel is bringing its iGPU naming convention in-line with its desktop Arc offerings. The Core Ultra X9 388H gets the Arc B390 GPU that comes with 12 Xe3 cores. For context, Lunar Lake topped out with eight Xe2 cores, as did Arrow Lake-H with the Arc 140T. Intel is devoting a lot more die space to the iGPU on these X-series chips regardless of architectural improvements.

These two SKUs bring up a couple of important specs to pay attention to. First, PCIe lanes. Intel supports up to 20 PCIe lanes with a 12 / 8 split across Gen 5 and Gen 4, but on the X9 388H, it looks like eight of those lanes are going to the GPU. In addition, Panther Lake supports both LPDDR5x and DDR5 depending on if OEMs would rather favor speed or capacity, but the X-series models are locked to LPDDR5x.

For performance, Intel claims the Core Ultra X9 388H offers “up to” 60% higher multi-threaded performance in Cinebench 2024 compared to the Core Ultra 9 288V, with both chips running at 25W. More importantly, Intel claims up to a 76% improvement in gaming performance compared to the Core Ultra 9 285H. That number comes from a geomean of 45 games, tested at 1080p with 2X resolution scaling for XeSS in supported titles, according to Intel.

Arrow Lake-H boosts all the way up to 115W, and it appears these numbers aren’t based on ISO power. We’re waiting on confirmation, but it looks like Panther Lake is delivering that level of performance despite a much lower peak power draw.

All Panther Lake chips support Intel’s latest XeSS 3, but you’ll likely be able to take better advantage of it with the X-series parts. In addition to upscaling, XeSS 3 includes multi-frame generation, similar to Nvidia’s DLSS 4.

The competitive comparisons stand out even more. Intel claims Panther Lake can beat AMD's HX 370 by over 80% with native rendering, and by 73% when adding upscaling into the mix. Compared to a laptop with a discrete RTX 4050, the integrated GPU in the Core Ultra X9 388H offers similar performance. Intel has been trying to close the gap with entry-level graphics for years, and Panther Lake might actually make that a reality.

Although that's the goal, Intel clarified that it sees Panther Lake has an entry-level replacement, not as the future of mobile gaming. Even so, Intel is launching a dedicated handheld platform to support OEMs with Panther Lake, which we should learn more about later in the year.

The Core Ultra 7 lineup is more robust with six total SKUs, two of which carry the Arc B390. Here, we can see the first chips that drop the H suffix, which have a lower peak power rating, along with a reduced core count and L3 cache size. The eight-core design on Panther Lake cuts out the E-core cluster entirely for a split between P-cores and low-power E-cores. These SKUs also drop Thunderbolt 5 support, though they still come with the same four integrated Thunderbolt 4 connections as the rest of the stack.

Intel’s goal with Panther Lake was to provide the performance of Arrow Lake-H and the efficiency of Lunar Lake in a single package. We’ll have to wait until the processors are here to see if that’s the case, but the specs certainly look like Intel splitting the difference between the two series.The chips sport the same 25W base TDP as Arrow Lake-H, but they top out much lower; Arrow Lake-H boosted to 115W, while Arrow Lake-HX climbed as high as 160W. If Intel is able to stick the landing with its performance claims, it could be a watershed moment for its mobile lineup, which has struggled to nail a balance between peak performance and multi-day efficiency in the past few generations.

For the Core Ultra 9 and 7 lineups, as well as two of the Core Ultra 5s, Intel has a configurable power design. The range has a base power of 25W and a maximum turbo power of 65W. However, OEMs can instead opt for a base power of 45W and a maximum turbo power of 80W.

Most of the Core Ultra 5 lineup ditches the H suffix, opting for lower power draw and a drop down to eight cores. The most interesting chip here is the Core Ultra 5 338H. It doesn’t carry the X-series branding, but it comes with a branded iGPU (the Arc B370), along with 10 Xe3 cores. We don’t have any Core Ultra 3 SKUs yet, but those usually arrive six months to a year after the initial product stack.

There are some features that reach across the entire stack. Wi-Fi 7 R2 and Bluetooth Core 6.0 are standard, as is XeSS, including multi-frame generation and Intel’s Endurance Gaming Mode for maximizing battery life. All of the chips also use Intel’s NPU 5 for up to 50 TOPS on the NPU, along with IPU 7.5, enabling higher resolutions on internal webcams.

Intel is trying to catch up with TSMC in terms of process technologies and advanced global production capacity, but when it comes to the U.S., the chip giant remains unrivalled. Intel's Fab 52 is more advanced than TSMC's current Fab 21 phase 1 and upcoming Fab 21 phase 2 facilities and its production capacity is comparable to both modules combined, according to a report by CNBC.

Intel's Fab 52 is designed to produce chips on Intel's 18A (1.8nm-class) and more advanced process technologies that use gate-all-around (GAA) RibbonFET transistors as well as PowerVia backside power delivery network. The facility's production capacity is 10,000 wafer starts per week, corresponding to approximately 40,000 wafer starts per month* (WSPM) at full ramp-up, which is considered a very large fab indeed by today's standards.

At present, Fab 52 is equipped with four ASML Twinscan NXE Low-NA EUV lithography systems (as observed by @IntelProMUltra), including at least one NXE:3800E — ASML's most advanced Low-NA EUV machine that borrows wafer handler, faster wafer stages, and light source from next-generation High-NA EUV tools and therefore can process up to 220 wafers per hour at a 30 mJ/cm^2 dose. The plant also has three NXE:3600D systems, which can process 160 wafers per hour at a 30 mJ/cm^2 dose.

In total, there will be at least 15 EUV scanners at Intel's Silicon Desert campus in Ocotillo, Arizona. However, we can only wonder how many of them will be High-NA EUV lithography tools and how many will be installed in the upcoming Fab 62. In any case, the words 'at least' imply that Intel has enough space to install more than 15 EUV lithography machines at its Arizona facilities.

When compared to TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 (which produces chips on the company's N4 and N5 process technologies), Intel's Fab 52 can make chips on considerably more advanced nodes (down to 1.8nm-class and beyond), and it can process two times more wafers per month. In fact, given that TSMC tends to build fab modules with production capacity of around 20,000 WSPM, even when TSMC completes its N3-capable Fab 21 phase 2, Intel's Fab 52 will remain on par or even a bit ahead of TSMC's facilities in Arizona when all three are fully ramped.

In fact, given that Intel's 18A production node is considerably more sophisticated than TSMC's N4 or N4P, the straightforward comparison of production capacities is not completely accurate, as Intel's fab has to do more work to create the node (even using the more advanced Twinscan NXE:3800B).

There is a caveat regarding Intel's Fab 52 ramp schedule, however. At present, it is ramping up production of Intel's Panther Lake processors using 18A technology, which is still in an early stage of its yield curve. Intel expects 18A yields to reach world-class levels in early 2027. Before then, Intel will not increase CPU production on this node beyond a certain level, so the fab will not be fully utilized initially, and some portion of its production capacity will remain unused. By contrast, TSMC ramps chip production using proven process technologies in the U.S., enabling rapid ramp-up and a quick increase in fab utilization to near 100%.

*Note that there are more than four weeks in an average month, so the maximum capacity of Intel's Fab 52 when fully ramped can be higher than 40,000 WSPM, depending on factors like planned maintenance and unplanned downtime.

Intel didn't talk about Panther Lake performance in detail when it took the wraps off its first 18A processors a bit ago, but a possible flagship SKU from the lineup — the Core Ultra X9 388H — has just appeared on Geekbench, and the scores are quite impressive. They not only one-up Intel's outgoing chips, but match AMD's top-end Strix Halo offerings as well.

The Core Ultra X9 388H got 3,057 points in the single-core test and 17,687 points in the multi-core test, both figures that put it way ahead of the Arrow Lake-H Core Ultra 9 285H, but also on par with the beefier Core Ultra 9 275HX.

That all is impressive enough, but compared to Ryzen AI Max+ 395, AMD's best mobile chip right now, the X9 388H's multi-core score is within the margin of error, but the single-core numbers are 8.7% ahead. The Geekbench listing also shows the CPU boosting to 5.1 GHz. Check out the table at the end of the article for a detailed breakdown.

These are exceptional values for a CPU that fits into an even tighter thermal envelope than Strix Halo. The X9 388H has a 45W default TDP versus the Ryzen AI Max+ 395's 55W default.

For some more context, the X9 388H is the highest-spec'd model from Panther Lake we've seen so far, featuring 16 cores in a 4P + 8E + 4 LP-E config, with no Hyper-Threading. The SKU also has the "X" designation because it features 12 Xe3 iGPU cores, but that's beyond the scope of this leak, though we've covered Panther Lake graphics before.

Panther Lake isn't supposed to come out until early next year, but excitement for the release is already dimmed. As it stands right now, surging memory prices may result in insane markups on laptops and other mobile devices featuring Panther Lake parts, no matter how impressive the SoC itself may or may not be.

Also, keep in mind that each Geekbench listing is different, so we have to wait for more benchmarks to come out before an average can be formed, but the first impressions with this leak sure do look great.

Panther Lake is still a couple of months away from its public launch, with the first batch of laptops and mobile devices set to debut in early Q1 2026. Release windows have never stopped leakers from getting their hands on engineering samples, which, in this case, they're trying to flip online. We don't endorse these practices, but the listings reveal interesting details about Intel's upcoming mobile family, including a supposed power limit for a Core Ultra 3 SKU, in the possession of veteran tipster @yuuki_ans.

The X post shows the ES still attached to the original reference platform (RVP) that Intel uses in its labs to test different configs on the fly. The CPU and memory can therefore be changed, but here it comes with a Core Ultra 3 chip featuring 10 cores, paired with 16 GB of LPDDR5X-7467 memory (split across 4 GB modules). Fellow leaker HXL shared a CPU-Z screenshot for this model, but let's say the numbers aren't that impressive, given the specs we're working with.

Speaking of, the core layout consists of 2 P-cores, 4 E-cores, and 4 LP-E cores, powered by 12 MB of L3 cache and 11 MB of L2 cache. The chip has a 3 GHz base clock with boost speeds up to 3.2 GHz — the P-Cores have a maximum clock of 3 GHz, while the E-cores can clock up to 2.4 GHz across the entire cluster. Power-wise, we're looking at 25W PL1, 65W PL2, and 140W PL3 with a TjMax of 100 degrees Celsius. Lastly, this SKU has 4 Xe3 GPU cores, so that we might be looking at an entry-level gaming laptop chip here.

Even though this is an engineering sample that likely doesn't unlock the full potential of the silicon (which is stepped "A0"), the pictures attached (in the replies) show the CPU up close in great detail. We can see four tiles on the processor, along with one empty tile, since this SKU is based on the PTL 16C/4Xe3 die, and we're missing a few cores. The entire package, labeled "000C06C0", is socketed using the BGA 2450 platform. Now, this actually isn't the only Panther Lake ES CPU allegedly floating around.

Another leaker, GOKForFree, showed a lower-end sample with only 2 P-Cores and 4 E-cores, which is unusual considering every Panther Lake SKU is expected to feature LP-E cores. This is another reason why pre-production silicon cannot be used to analyze final release performance. Whoever gets their hands on these chips will probably run benchmarks, and we'll start getting doused in Panther Lake leaks leading up to launch... say that fast 10 times.

Intel faces serious threat in the laptop market, not just from its nemesis AMD but also Qualcomm and Apple, thanks to the arrival of high-performance, highly efficient ARM cores that have forced the chipmaker to up every part of its game to compete. With 50% more oomph and 30% less power draw, the Core Ultra 3-series 'Panther Lake' processor is a robust response to those rivals — and at a financial event on Tuesday, Intel announced enormous progress toward delivering the goods.

When Intel announced mass production of Panther Lake about a month ago, the company openly admitted that all wafers for the initial CPUs would be made at pilot production lines in Oregon; the new Arizona fabs built on CHIPS ACT money would catch up later. Later means Q1, apparently, and the Arizona fabs should ramp up, the company said. This means costs might stay low, and crucially, yields will grow quickly (though likely remain low in 2026), all of which spells good news for anyone considering a new laptop.

“We now have a predictable path for yield improvement,” said John Pitzer, corporate vice president of corporate planning and investor relations at Intel.

Panther Lake is one of the first products to be fabricated on Intel's leading-edge 18A node, likely the industry's first high-volume process to incorporate two major innovations meant to enable future scaling and power efficiency gains: gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, which Intel calls RibbonFETs, and a backside power delivery network, which Intel calls PowerVia.

Efficient, cutting edge, and on time? For Intel, Panther Lake may be a rare animal indeed.

Low yields, high costs, but a good improvement pace

"Initially on any new process, we take wafers from Oregon," said John Pitzer, corporate vice president of corporate planning and investor relations at Intel, at RBC Capital Markets Global Technology, Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference 2025. "Oregon is where we do all of our technology development and then move into quasi high-volume manufacturing."

"Those wafers tend to be pretty expensive. Most, if not all, of the Panther Lake wafers this year are coming from Oregon. As we transition into Q1, you will start to see wafers coming in from Arizona [which] has a much better and different cost structure, and that ramps throughout the year," Pitzer said.

Most likely, Intel has not yet initiated mass production of Panther Lake's compute tiles using its 18A process technology at Fab 52 in Arizona due to low yields. The company wants to achieve the highest yield possible on its pilot lines at the D1X fab in Ohio, where developers of the production nodes and process engineers are, and only then transfer the recipe to its production facility in Arizona. As a result, Intel is poised to use low-yield, high-cost wafers for the initial batches of Panther Lake, which is not good news for its costs – but a normal situation in the chip-making world.

There’s good news here about Intel's 18A yields: They are finally increasing at a predictable pace of 7% per month, which is common for the middle phase of every process ramp. Intel does not divulge whether these are functional or parametric yields, which somewhat devalues the claim, but it still reflects Intel's vision about the progress of its 18A node.

"I think one of the things that has changed dramatically over the last seven or eight months, is, we now have a predictable path for yield improvement," Pitzer said. "We have [said] in the past that the industry average yield improvement on a new ramp is about 7% per month and we are now on that curve for Panther Lake, which is giving us some confidence as we launch the product this quarter."

18A is on the right curve, but Panther Lake will be a rare animal

When a new leading-edge production technology like 18A enters volume production, yields typically rise by a predictable improvement curve every month. A 7% yield improvement per month is normal for the middle phase of the ramp, though it is generally lower in the early and late phases as yield-curves tend to be S-shaped.

Intel says that 18A is now following this exact 7% trend for Panther Lake, which is important because past Intel nodes failed to do so and demonstrated chaotic yield improvements or even drops. This is famously why Intel cancelled 20A a little over a year ago; using chips with such a risky yield meant the product schedule was insecure. Hitting the 'industry-normal' yield ramp means the process is stable, and Intel can predict where it is going to be with Panther Lake yields a quarter or two down the road.

An avid reader might ask why Intel measures yield improvement per month, while modern process technologies (e.g., TSMC N3 or Intel 18A) have cycles that are around 120 days long. This actually happens because fabs track the defect density (D0) and process quality at the moment wafers enter the line, not when they finish.

Chipmakers tend to implement fixes — lithography tuning, etch-uniformity adjustments, systematic-defect removal — that immediately change defect density and the projected final yield of wafers started that month, even though those wafers will not complete for another three or four months. Since these changes reduce defects continuously, chipmakers can calculate the expected yield right away using standard yield models. Hence, once Intel's models show continuous improvements for 18A in general and Panther Lake compute tile in particular, the company can safely launch the CPU commercially.

Of course, when we talk about any yield-improvement curve, an elephant in the room is the starting point. If we start from 25% and improve yields by 7% per month, we reach an industry normal 85% good die yield in 8.5 – 9 months, sometime in early fall 2026. Meanwhile, Intel itself claims that 18A will reach industry standard yields in early 2027, which means that for now, yields are probably 10% to 15%.

Costly at first, but for whom?

Starting quasi volume production with low yields at a development fab is a good way to skyrocket costs; D1D's pilot lines are designed not for efficiency but rather for maximum flexibility, to maximize yields. Intel notes that it will start making compute tiles for Panther Lake in early 2026 at Fab 52, which given the S-shaped good-die yield curve, will be around the time when PNL's GDY hits stable 20% – 25%.

While initiating mass production with such a yield means high costs, retaining production at pilot lines is still more expensive, so moving production of Panther Lake's compute tiles to Arizona makes great sense for Intel. Furthermore, high-volume fabs tend to reveal systematic issues that occur with a process technology, which lets the company perform continuous process improvements to ramp yields and lower performance variations through statistical process control, something impossible to do at pilot lines.

Of course, using a high-volume fab with low yields will hit Intel's bottom line heavily, but this is inevitable.

Intel is opening pop-up stores in five cities across the globe to promote its AI PCs just in time for the winter holiday shopping season. Intel AI Experience stores have unlocked their doors in New York City, London, Munich, Paris, and Seoul from the end of October until November or December, depending on the location.

The stores feature laptops from brands like Asus, Acer, Dell, Google, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, MSI, and Samsung, allowing customers to get their hands on the latest devices from these manufacturers ahead of the critical holiday shopping season.

“Intel is excited to bring this AI-powered shopping experience — in collaboration with our global retail and technology partners — to shoppers around the world for the holiday shopping season,” Intel Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Brett Hannath said. “AI technology has the potential to enable better everyday experiences for all of us, and this showcase will give shoppers an opportunity to see just how Intel and its partners are powering new ways for communities to create, game, work, learn, and connect.”

We stopped at the New York store when it opened today. The store, located a stone's throw from Rockefeller Center, was mostly showing off productivity laptops, Chromebooks, and a few gaming rigs. There was also a gaming section to play games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Marvel Rivals, and Battlefield 6.

Other than a few demos, it's mostly a chance to check out laptops that are already on the market.

Tech YouTuber High Yield dropped by the Munich pop-up, and he shared photos of Intel CPUs that look like the upcoming Panther Lake processors on X. They also mentioned spotting some laptops that featured the new chips. That makes the Munich spot far more interesting than what we saw here in New York.

The chipmaker revealed more details about Panther Lake in October, which would be the first ones to take advantage of the company’s 18A process. They are supposed to be more power-efficient, delivering 50% more performance at the same power levels compared to Lunar Lake processors.

Intel is leaning on the AI branding, which hasn’t been that successful with customers. In fact, the company’s older Raptor Lake chips have been selling much better compared to its newer AI chips to the point that 12th-, 13th-, and 14th-gen Intel Core processors are seeing price hikes despite being older.

Research has shown that customers are buying these AI laptops not for their AI capabilities, but because they simply need new computers. Furthermore, Windows 10's end of support, which was supposed to significantly drive up demand for Copilot+ PCs, pushed demand for Apple MacBooks instead. Still, we hope that the upcoming Panther Lake chips drive sales and demand for its processors and help bring Intel back from the brink.

Intel officially took the wraps off Panther Lake two weeks ago, and even though we already did our deep dive into the family's architecture, something far more arbitrary has still not been cleared up — the naming scheme. Last week, HWMonitor got updated to add support for Panther Lake, from where we learned the purported models that make up the lineup. Now, we have fresh news, courtesy of a new Geekbench listing, that somewhat refutes part of that, potentially clearing the air for Panther Lake's confusing naming scheme once and for all.

The screenshot above shows the Vulkan score for Core Ultra 5 338H, confirming that it doesn't have an "X" in its name and that the exact iGPU under the hood is an Arc B370. That sounds a lot like a desktop-class GPU, especially because Intel never used 300-series branding for either Lunar Lake or Meteor Lake. Regardless, we're looking at a 10-core Xe3 GPU based on Battlemage IP, since Intel decided to make Celestial (Arc C-series) Xe3P, and Intel has apparently adopted a completely new naming scheme for Panther Lake graphics.

The 39,406 score in the actual Geekbench listing is not that impressive when you consider the architectural leap, the node improvements, and the fact that two extra cores only yield a roughly 4% higher score than last-gen's competing Lunar Lake GPU — the Arc A140T, which scores 37,953 points on average. Still, the performance is in line with AMD's Radeon 880M iGPU, which is found in the company's Strix Point APU lineup and is listed at around 39,917 in Geekbench. Overall, Panther Lake's integrated graphics seem to be solid.

In the original announcement, Intel only vaguely mentioned the SKUs we can expect from this generation, divided into three categories: a low-power 8-core tier, a high-power 16-core tier, and another high-power 16-core tier with fully spec'd out integrated graphics. That last tier is what pre-launch leaks already told us about: a new "X" designation for flagship processors with 12 Xe3 GPU cores. Though there was some confusion about whether the branding would extend to Core Ultra 5, since it only has 10 Xe3 cores.

Originally, we thought it was just one Core Ultra 9 and two Core Ultra 7 SKUs, but the HWMonitor update explicitly bundled in one Core Ultra 5 by calling it "Core Ultra X5 388H," which today's Geekbench listing contradicts, bringing us full circle to the original leak where it was never part of the X club anyways. All of this to say, we're pretty confident now that only three top-end Panther Lake SKUs will carry the X branding and feature 12 Xe3 GPU cores, while the Core Ultra 5 338H will still remain part of this upper tier (since it uses a cut-down version of the same tile), but just without an X.

We've plotted out a table for you below to make it easier to understand Panther Lake models, but keep in mind that this is still speculative since laptops with these processors haven't been released yet.

*figures in table are not confirmed.

Intel's management revealed during the company's Q3 2025 earnings call that while its 18A fabrication process is progressing predictably, with usable yields, enabling the company to begin ramping production of the Core Ultra 300-series processors, codenamed Panther Lake. However, the ramp-up of 18A processors will be slow due to relatively low yields, and Intel will not expand available 18A capacity at a rapid pace. Currently, 18A's yields are not yet comfortable from a commercial point of view.

"We are making steady progress on Intel 18A, we are on track to bring Panther Lake to market this year," said Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive of Intel. "18A yields are progressing at a predictable rate, and Fab 52 in Arizona, which is dedicated to high-volume manufacturing, is now fully operational."

Intel's 18A process technology is the company's first production node that relies on RibbonFET gate-all-around (GAA) transistors as well as features PowerVia backside power delivery. Intel will use 18A to produce Panther Lake processors for consumer PCs, then for Xeon 6+ 'Clearwater Forest' and 'Diamond Rapids' processors for data centers, as well as for Nova Lake CPUs, which target the enthusiast market.

18A ramp will be slower than planned

David Zinsner, Chief Financial Officer at Intel, told analysts that yields are sufficient to support Panther Lake product shipments, but not yet high enough to deliver normal profit margins. Yields should reach Intel's desired cost level by the end of 2026, with industry-standard results in 2027, according to Zinsner.

"Yields are adequate to address supply, but they are not where we need them to be in order to drive the appropriate level of margins," said Zinsner. "By the end of next year we will probably be in that space, and certainly the year after that they will be at what would be an industry-acceptable level."

This means that Intel will ramp up production of its Panther Lake processors more slowly than initially planned, and will focus on building more advanced models first (assuming it can make enough chips with higher-end specifications), to sell them at higher prices.

Zinsner also emphasized that Intel does not plan to add significantly more 18A capacity in 2026. Lip-Bu Tan added that the company will add capacity only when it has commitments from its own products division or to external customers. The executives expect 18A supply to peak by the end of the decade.

"I would not expect significant capacity increases in the near term [next year]," Zinsner said. "We do not get to peak supply for 18A until the end of the decade, and we do think this node will be a fairly long-lived node for us."

Intel certainly has big plans for 18A, and its performance-enhanced variant 18A-P. The company's chief executive emphasized that 18A will serve as the foundation for at least three future generations of consumer and server products, which include secure-enclave programs with the U.S. government, and for external foundry clients. Last quarter, the company also released an 18A-P process development kit (PDK), which opens the door for external customers to design chips on this fabrication technology.

In case you missed it, our coverage of Intel's Tech Tour 2025 included an extensive breakdown of the chip company's upcoming Panther Lake mobile processors. There were many details that Intel left out of its presentation, though. Now, thanks to the tearless retina of the ever-watchful Benchleaks bot, we have our first proper leak of what seems like it may be final or near-final Panther Lake silicon.

The leaks appeared early this morning; there are fully eight results in total. Someone was testing an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (GU405AA) laptop using the Geekbench Compute test on the integrated Xe3 GPU of an "Intel Core Ultra X7 358H". That model matches one of the leaked model names that was posted on ChipHell earlier this month and confirmed by CPUID, the developers of HWMonitor. The chip has sixteen CPU cores, which we understand to comprise four Cougar Cove P-cores, eight Darkmont E-cores, and four Darkmont LP-cores.

While the Geekbench result lists a maximum CPU frequency of 3751 MHz, digging into the result JSON tells a different story. Forty-five values populate the processor_frequency.frequencies array, ranging from 3519 MHz all the way up to 4767 MHz, and that's not a huge outlier; there are many results in the 4600-4700 MHz range. This might give us an idea of what kind of boost clocks we can expect from Panther Lake; 4.75 GHz is right in the same ballpark of what you can expect from AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 during a gaming workload.

As previously leaked by the well-known Golden Pig Upgrade, the "X" in the model name seems to indicate that this chip has the full 12-core GPU. Indeed, Geekbench reports that the tested GPU has 96 "Compute Units," because it's counting the individual Xe Vector Engines, or XVEs. There are eight XVEs to a Xe3-core; thus, twelve cores means 96 XVEs.

We knew that already, but what we didn't know were the kinds of clock rates we could expect from the integrated GPU. Geekbench reports a Maximum Frequency of 2.5 GHz, which is quite respectable even among integrated GPUs. This may not even be final silicon or drivers, though, because the GPU is reported as simply being an "Intel(R) Arc(TM) [0] GPU (16GB)".

The scores for the benchmark slowly went up as the tester re-ran it; the highest score achieved was 52946 points under OpenCL. Glancing over the Geekbench Browser, this result is in broadly the same range as AMD's Radeon 890M graphics, and in fact ahead of both the mobile GeForce RTX 3050 and Intel's own Arc A550M, which has sixteen Xe-cores and a relatively thirsty 75W-95W TDP. While the score might not sound too impressive, remember that we're looking at an integrated GPU with non-final software, running a benchmark that Intel typically lags in. So saying, it's actually a reasonably impressive result; these scores already beat Lunar Lake by nearly double.

Panther Lake's integrated graphics are based on the Xe3 architecture, but unlike Xe2, where every implementation of it used the same fundamental architecture, Xe3 takes a step back toward the original Xe philosophy, where the GPU core architecture is tweaked for the specific application. The upcoming "Celestial" discrete GPUs based on Xe3 will purportedly use the "Xe3p" variant of the architecture, about which nearly nothing is known just yet.

Despite being based on Xe3, though, the graphics in Panther Lake will be branded as Arc B-series products. That's because, as our own Jeff Kampman said, Xe3 is "more of a continuous improvement of the existing Battlemage architectural lineage than an all-new design." Intel says that Xe3 offers as much as a 7.4x improvement in certain microbenchmarks, but is only committed to an "over 50%" gain in actual performance versus the "Lunar Lake" Core Ultra 200V series. 50% is the gain in GPU size over Lunar Lake, so let's hope this Geekbench result is a hint at a much larger gain than that versus the last-gen chips.

The naming scheme for Intel’s recently announced Panther Lake series of mobile processors has been spotted in the release notes for the popular system sensor monitoring tool, by developers CPU ID. According to HWMonitor's release notes for version 1.6, the software now offers support for the upcoming Panther Lake architecture. The notes on the HWMonitor site feature Intel Panther Lake-H and Panther Lake-U processors and list a total of 12 SKUs, including the Core Ultra X9 388H, which will presumably become Intel's next flagship chip.

Announced last week, Intel’s Panther Lake family of mobile processors mark the company’s first consumer CPUs built on its next-generation 18A process node. The new lineup combines elements from Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, bringing improved efficiency and performance in a modular, disaggregated design. Panther Lake features Cougar Cove performance cores, Darkmont efficiency cores, and Xe3 integrated graphics with up to 12 Xe cores.

Intel has developed two 18A compute dies that can be combined with different GPUs and I/O tiles to produce three distinct Panther Lake SoCs designed for different performance levels and price segments. The models listed by HWMonitor are as follows:

Panther Lake-H (Core Ultra X 300H)

-Intel Core Ultra X9 388H
-Intel Core Ultra X7 368H
-Intel Core Ultra X7 358H
-Intel Core Ultra X5 338H

Panther Lake-H (Core Ultra 300H)

-Intel Core Ultra 9 375H
-Intel Core Ultra 7 355H
-Intel Core Ultra 7 345H
-Intel Core Ultra 5 325H

Panther Lake-U (Core Ultra 300U)

-Intel Core Ultra 7 360U
-Intel Core Ultra 5 350U
-Intel Core Ultra 5 340U
-Intel Core Ultra 3 320U

If we connect the dots, the smallest of the three Panther Lake SoCs could go on to become the Panther Lake-U variant. Based on existing materials released by Intel, this series is set to feature a 4P+4E core configuration similar to Lunar Lake, with 12MB of shared L3 cache and an Xe3 GPU offering up to four Xe cores. It also supports DDR5 SODIMMs or LPCAMM modules up to 6800 MT/s, as well as soldered LPDDR5X memory running at up to 6400 MT/s.

The mid-size configuration likely corresponds to the Panther Lake-H series, which features a 4P+8E+4LPE core setup, with up to 18MB of shared L3 cache. While it retains the same 4 Xe Core GPU as the smaller variant, the higher core count and larger cache suggest higher performance potential. Additionally, this tier supports DDR5 at speeds up to 7200 MT/s and LPDDR5X at up to 8533 MT/s.

Lastly, the Core Ultra X-branded Panther Lake-H could correspond to the high-end SoC, which features a similar 4P+8E+4LPE CPU core configuration but with a more powerful 12 Xe3 Core GPU for enhanced graphics performance. Notably, this chip has more limited memory options, which aim to deliver adequate memory bandwidth for the GPU. As per Intel, this tier will support LPDDR5X memory at 9600 MT/s.

Intel is expected to officially confirm the final SKUs for Panther Lake later this year, with the first wave of products anticipated to ship before the end of 2025, and a broader availability starting next year. However, the early listings offer an early indication of how the lineup could be structured across performance (H-series) and efficiency (U-series) tiers. Additionally, the mention of previously leaked Core Ultra X models suggest that Intel plans to reserve the “X” branding for its top-tier performance chips.

Intel has started volume production of its Core Ultra 3-series 'Panther Lake' processors, the company said on Thursday. Intel's Panther Lake is a crucial CPU for the company, designed to demonstrate Intel's ability to develop a competitive processor and produce it internally using its leading-edge manufacturing technology. This is intended to enhance the company's reputation among clients, the general public, and potential foundry customers.

While the official start of 18A production is a win for the company, as it is technically the first with a 2nm-class node in production, it still faces a potent foe in TSMC — the new node merely represents catching up rather than taking the lead. Here's how the two nodes stack up.

Intel 18A vs. TSMC's N2

Intel's 18A (1.8 nm-class) fabrication process is one of the key features of the company's next-generation Panther Lake platform, serving as both its technological showcase and strategic milestone.

The 18A production node itself is designed to prove that Intel can not only create a compelling CPU architecture but also manufacture it internally on a technology node competitive with TSMC's best offerings. The node is also the first 1.8 nm-class (or, as Intel brands it, 2 nm-class) process to enter high-volume production anywhere in the world, preceding TSMC's N2 by weeks or even months.

18A employs Intel's RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery, two technological breakthroughs implemented simultaneously. Intel de-risked these two innovations separately in different internal nodes, but implementing them simultaneously for the first time in a production node is still a somewhat risky move intended to demonstrate that Intel can leap forward and introduce these innovations at once.

*Chip density published by TSMC reflects 'mixed' chip density consisting of 50% logic, 30% SRAM, and 20% analog.
**According to TechInsights.
*** According to WikiChip.

Analysts believe that Intel's 18A will lead the industry in terms of performance and power efficiency. However, TSMC's N2 is projected to offer considerably higher high-density (HD) standard-cell transistor density (313 MTr/mm^2) compared to Intel's 18A (238 MTr/mm^2), according to reports.

While most modern designs use a mix of high-density (HD), high-performance (HP), and low-power (LP) standard cells, higher HD transistor density could still mean lower per-transistor costs for the foundry. However, it is unclear whether these savings will be passed on to the company's clients.

Furthermore, it should be noted that when comparing the transistor density of Intel's 18A, which features a backside power delivery network, with TSMC's N2, which uses a traditional frontside PDN, the comparison is not entirely accurate. Intel's 18A leaves the front side almost entirely for signal interconnects and logic transistors, whereas TSMC's N2 uses plenty of transistors on the front side for power distribution (power-gating header/footer switches, ESD, MOS decaps, on-die regulators, etc.). As a result, 18A's and N2's effective transistor densities could be very close.

However, flipping the wafer and producing a power delivery network on the backside costs money, so Intel's 18A is likely a more expensive process technology to fabricate than TSMC's N2, which will not be a problem for premium products, though.

While 18A looks good in general on paper, the competitiveness of Intel's Core Ultra 3 'Panther Lake' and Xeon 6+ 'Clearwater Forest' is an important step for Intel toward regaining manufacturing credibility and attracting external foundry customers for 18A, 18A-P, and future 14A nodes.

Production slip and Intel 18A yields

Intel says Panther Lake's compute tiles on 18A 'began early production' at its development and low-volume fabs in Oregon, and 'is now ramping toward high-volume production in Arizona.' As expected, Intel first began to ramp Panther Lake manufacturing at Fab 52. Apparently, Fab 62 is still under construction and will be ramped up when demand for 18A picks up.

The first Panther Lake CPU model is 'slated to ship before the end of the year and broad market availability starting January 2026.' Such an announcement signals a delay, as originally Intel indicated the availability of Panther Lake processors in 2025. Furthermore, the announcement may also highlight a slower-than-expected volume ramp, as the company previously indicated that additional Panther Lake models (not just the halo SKU) would be rolled out in the first quarter of 2026. This time around, Intel didn't reveal when it expects the whole Panther Lake product lineup to ramp up.

As part of its recent Tech Tour US event, Intel took the wraps off its trio of upcoming Panther Lake SoCs. It also walked us through the improvements and expected performance of its new Xe3 graphics architecture, which is coming to market in the form of two integrated GPU tiles for Panther Lake. For more details on the three primary configurations of Panther Lake SoCs, as well as a more general overview of Panther Lake's CPU resources, check out our dedicated article.

First things first: Intel emphasized that Xe3 is not based on the Celestial architecture, even though its name conveniently maps to that codename's place in Intel's past roadmaps. Let us repeat: this is not Celestial. Intel classifies Xe3 GPUs as part of the Battlemage family because the capabilities the chip presents to software are similar to those of existing Xe2 products. Therefore, it will include Panther Lake iGPUs under the Arc B-series umbrella. The company admits this naming scheme isn't ideal, but it appears to be the least worst option for the time being.

Indeed, once you start digging into the changes Intel highlights for Xe3, you'll see that it's more of a continuous improvement of the existing Battlemage architectural lineage than an all-new design. The next "clean" generational leap will come with Xe3P Arc GPUs, but it's unclear when those parts will arrive. Intel was understandably mum about Xe3P products during the Panther Lake event.

The building blocks

The basic Xe3 Xe Core (henceforth Xe3 Core) keeps the same basic layout of Xe2: eight Xe Vector Engines for floating-point and integer math, eight XMX engines for acceleration of matrix math for AI applications, and one ray-tracing unit. Intel says the changes within Xe3 are meant to improve two pain points: better utilization of available resources, an ongoing project for Arc GPUs, and making the architecture more scalable, which is important for building larger and higher-performance products.

The prior Xe2 render slice included up to four Xe Cores, from which graphics processors as small as Lunar Lake's iGPU (two render slices) and as large as the Arc B580 (five render slices) were all constructed.

The Xe3 render slice, on the other hand, starts with six Xe Cores, and it's been used to make two iGPUs so far.

The headliner is the two-render-slice, 12 Xe3 Core part that will power gaming, content creation, and AI workloads in the highest-performance variant of the Panther Lake SoC.

The other is a four-Xe3-Core part that provides graphics functionality on lower-end Panther Lake products.

Observant readers may be wondering why, given that an Xe3 render slice starts with six Xe Cores, the smaller Xe3 GPU on Panther Lake only includes four Xe Cores. Intel has always maintained a level of fine-grained control over the size of its graphics engines (stretching well into the pre-Arc days) to meet various product demands, so even if Xe3 starts with six Xe Cores per render slice, it's no surprise that it can be scaled down.

Improvements large and small

Intel says each Xe3 Xe Core can keep up to 25% more threads in flight - from eight to 10 - versus its predecessor, and the core can variably allocate partitions of each Xe Vector Engine's register file per thread in order to achieve better utilization.

Variable register allocation is truly new to Xe3. Previous Arc GPUs used a coarser per-thread register allocation strategy that posed challenges for fully utilizing the core's available resources. Intel says this is a key improvement in the Xe3 architecture and says that it has "dramatic effects on performance."

One of Xe3's other big structural changes — at least for an Arc iGPU — is an increase in shared local memory per Xe core. Xe3 now includes 256KB of shared local memory, up from 192KB in Xe2 on Lunar Lake and the improved Xe-LPG architecture on Meteor Lake. Intel says that workloads spilling out of this shared local memory is a major reason for performance pitfalls on older Arc iGPUs, so adding more of it is a sensible and relatively simple architectural refinement with a major performance payoff.

It's worth noting that this change simply brings Xe3 iGPUs in line with the basic resources offered by desktop Xe2 products. The Arc B580 and B5700 already had 256KB of local memory per Xe Core, so don't expect performance miracles from this increase. The fact that Intel is adding more local memory here probably shows that the size of this structure on Battlemage discrete GPUs was the right decision and one worthy of carrying through the Arc B-series graphics stack.

More big changes occur further out in the cache hierarchy. In its largest 12-Xe-Core configuration, Panther Lake's Arc GPU now sports 16MB of shared L2 cache, double that of Lunar Lake's eight-Xe-Core graphics engine. This is an absolutely massive L2 for a GPU of this size; the Arc B580, by comparison, only sports 18MB (or 12.5% more) L2 for a chip with 67% more Xe Cores to feed.

Intel says a larger L2 cache reduces traffic on Panther Lake's on-package fabric that connects the graphics processor to main memory - an important consideration for an integrated graphics processor that might be contending with a CPU and NPU for access to RAM. Intel showed a chart claiming anywhere from a 17% to 36% reduction in fabric traffic compared to a product with an 8MB L2 as a baseline.

Xe3 also features a number of smaller, but still important, refinements. Xe2's ray tracing engine allows for asynchronous evaluation of ray-triangle intersection, but the results of those tests have to be resolved in order. That responsibility falls to a thread sorting unit that could previously cause backups in the ray-tracing pipeline. Intel says the improved ray tracing engine in Xe3 can dynamically slow down dispatch of new rays while the sorting unit catches up to work in flight.

Intel also increased the performance of a cache called the Unified Return Buffer, or URB, which is a means of passing data between functional units on the GPU. The company equipped the Xe3 URB with a new management agent that can make partial updates to this buffer without requiring a full flush for each context switch, lowering the cost of cross-functional-unit communication.

Xe3 also includes improvements to fixed-function hardware in order to improve performance in some common graphics tasks. The company says to expect up to 2x the anisotropic filtering rate, and up to a 2x improvement in stencil test rate.

In a range of proprietary microarchitectural benchmarks versus the Xe2 GPU on Lunar Lake, you can see that the performance of the 12 Xe3 Core GPU in some operations hasn't changed between Xe2 and Xe3, simply because the available resources per render slice haven't grown. Intel demonstrates that some other operations have scaled linearly with the 50% increase in Xe Cores from Lunar Lake to Panther Lake's 12 Xe configuration.

Operations like ray-triangle intersection tests, anisotropic filtering, mesh rendering, and scattered reads from memory, start to demonstrate microarchitectural as well as scaling improvements in Xe3; they all enjoy 2x or better speedups relative to Xe2.

For shaders that place a large amount of pressure on registers, Xe3's dynamic register allocation can deliver anywhere from 1.9x to 3.1x faster performance in Intel's internal microbenchmarks. Depth testing operations—an incredibly important and fundamental part of the modern render pipeline—enjoy anywhere from a 1.9x to an incredible 7.4x speedup.

Intel isn't talking about detailed specs like clock speeds for Xe3 GPUs just yet, but the company did provide a set of ballpark power-versus-performance plots that are typical of early looks at silicon.

The first claim shows that the 12 Xe Core GPU has a much broader range of scaling than Lunar Lake. If given a large amount of extra power over Lunar Lake, the 12 Xe Core Arc GPU can offer 50% or greater performance in exchange. If we eyeball the same power level as Lunar Lake in this chart, performance gains are much more modest, but still present.

When discussing performance-per-watt improvements, Intel instead points to the Arrow Lake-H iGPU, against which the company claims a greater than 40% improvement in efficiency for the same performance. We would certainly hope that Panther Lake provides a performance-per-watt improvement in this match-up, as the Arrow Lake-H iGPU is based on the aging Xe-LPG architecture that first made its debut in the almost two-year-old Meteor Lake and has its roots in the three-year-old Alchemist architecture.

If you directly compare Panther Lake to Lunar Lake for efficiency, Xe3 still delivers a performance-per-watt improvement, but it's smaller (probably under 20%, if we had to eyeball it). Gripes about relevant comparisons aside, what we should take away here is that the Lunar Lake iGPU (at least in its 12 Xe Core form) delivers both performance per watt improvements and a broader range of performance scaling possibilities compared to the company's past integrated GPU efforts.

What is impressive, however, is that these improvements have all come by way of architectural refinements. Intel says it hasn't changed the process technology it's using to fabricate the GPU tile (presumably relative to Arrow Lake), so these boosts to both power and performance come exclusively from the architectural improvements discussed above.

Another way Intel talks about performance with Xe3 is by walking through the time it takes for a hypothetical frame to be rendered on both Lunar Lake and Panther Lake. As any graphics performance enthusiast knows, a lower frame time on average means higher frame rates. One frame isn't terribly useful as a benchmark, but Intel's trip inside the frame time journey shows several key improvements related to the microarchitectural refinements in Xe3. Overall, this same frame renders in 22.84 ms on the 12 Xe3-Core GPU, or 50% less time.

Going hands-on with Xe Multi Frame Generation

Of course, GPUs these days aren't just a chip - they're part of an entire hardware-software stack. Intel is continuing to invest in its XeSS suite of technologies to keep pace with Nvidia and AMD. On top of upscaling and 2x framegen support in XeSS 2, an upcoming XeSS release will add AI-accelerated multi-frame generation to Intel’s arsenal.

Like Nvidia’s DLSS Multi-Frame Generation, XeSS MFG will offer 2x, 3x, and 4x modes (one, two, or three generated frames). It also won’t require game developers to update their XeSS 2 titles to explicitly support the feature.

Any of the (small) list of titles that already support Xe Frame Generation will work with XeSS MFG through an override in the Intel Graphics Software control panel.

We had an opportunity to go hands-on with XeSS Multi Frame Generation on a Panther Lake engineering system at the Tech Tour event. Based on my limited time with the demo system, the image quality of XeMFG is impressive. I didn't see any distracting artifacts that would have given the framegen-boosted frame rate away.

However, input lag was just a bit too far over the line of tolerability for a great experience in a fast-paced shooter like the upcoming Painkiller, although I'm sure I could have tuned upscaling and quality settings to arrive at a more responsive experience.

I was somewhat frustrated by Intel’s use of baseline frame rates as a proxy for acceptable input lag with XeMFG. We’ve already performed some high-level testing that demonstrates how the two measurements are not necessarily correlated, and Intel’s representatives threw around what seemed to me to be unreasonably low baseline frame rates for a good framegen experience.

We’ll need to see how PresentMon interacts with XeMFG going forward in order to see whether it can be used reliably to gauge a game’s input lag and its suitability for use with XeMFG on a given Arc graphics platform.

To improve game load times and in-game smoothness, Intel also plans to begin distributing pre-compiled shaders from the cloud for compatible installed games on a user’s system using the Intel Graphics Software utility.

Anybody who’s loaded a modern AAA title knows the pain of long load times and in-game stutter as shaders compile for the first time, and Intel seems to think it’s a worthy investment to allocate cloud resources to make this problem go away entirely. This isn’t a game-changer, but it is a straightforward and handy perk for users of Arc graphics products.

Overall, our first experiences with Xe3 and the larger 12-Xe3-core GPU on Panther Lake are promising. At least for now, Intel remains committed to Arc graphics despite its recent earth-shaking deal with Nvidia, and we can’t wait to test Xe3 in greater depth once shipping Panther Lake systems arrive late this year or early next.

Intel revealed new information about its upcoming Panther Lake chips made on its new 18A node at an event in Arizona, including claims that the chips can deliver 50% more performance at similar power to its Lunar Lake chips or reduce power by 30% in multi-threaded work compared to its Arrow Lake-H processors. Going by past Intel launch cycles, we're likely to hear more about these chips at CES 2026. Intel says "broad market availability" will start in January 2026.

These sorts of improvements are badly needed because, in recent years, Intel has faced a triple threat in the laptop processor market. AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple all want a piece of the lucrative premium laptop pie, and especially in the case of Qualcomm and Apple, the arrival of high-performance, highly efficient Arm cores on SoCs boasting powerful NPUs and GPUs has forced Intel to up every part of its game to stay competitive on performance and battery life.

Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake Core Ultra CPUs proved that relatively short battery life wasn't an inherent problem of Intel x86 products, but the highly integrated design of Lunar Lake SoCs (combining both compute and memory on a single package) meant that laptop OEMs didn't have nearly as much flexibility and control over system configurations and costs as they might get with a Meteor Lake or Arrow Lake CPU and discrete memory packages, whether in soldered or SO-DIMM flavors.

In exchange for that greater flexibility in memory configurations, Arrow Lake-H SoCs come with tradeoffs of their own. Arrow Lake systems certainly don't have bad battery life, but Lunar Lake is still the best thing going for unplugged efficiency from Intel CPUs.

Lunar Lake also includes a GPU built on Intel's latest Xe2 graphics architecture, while Arrow Lake-H CPUs use an older, larger Xe-LPG+ GPU, which has its roots in first-gen Arc Alchemist products, to deliver relatively similar performance (but likely with worse power efficiency).

Arrow Lake-H also carries over Meteor Lake's rather limited pair of Crestmont E-cores in its low-power island, even as its on-die E-cores got an upgrade to the more advanced Skymont microarchitecture that also underpins the quartet of low-power E-cores on Lunar Lake. Are you lost yet?

This dizzying mix of performance levels, power efficiency targets, architectural generations, and system configuration restrictions across Intel mobile platforms is a headache for consumers and laptop makers alike.

Enter Panther Lake, the great unifier that Intel hopes will bring the best of Lunar Lake's power efficiency improvements and Arrow Lake's performance scalability together in one common package.

Panther Lake SoCs are all built up from the same cutting-edge P-cores, E-cores, and iGPU architecture, while affording laptop makers more freedom to tailor their products to a wider range of buyers and price points. And as Intel's first product to ship with a compute tile fabricated on the latest 18A process node, Panther Lake has a ton to prove.

At its most recent Tech Tour event, held in the backyard of its leading-edge fabs in Chandler, Arizona, Intel walked us through everything that makes Panther Lake tick. Here’s the story so far.

Intel's 18A process ramps up

Panther Lake's compute tile is one of the first products to be fabricated on Intel's leading-edge 18A node. As a quick refresher, 18A is Intel's (and likely the industry's) first high-volume process to incorporate two major innovations meant to enable future scaling and power efficiency gains: gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, which Intel calls RibbonFETs, and a backside power delivery network, which Intel calls PowerVia.

Intel describes its RibbonFETs as "the ultimate transistor," since their gate structure allows for what the company calls "complete control" over the channel. Compared to FinFETs, whose gate structure doesn't extend to the bottom of the channel and therefore has a "weak point" for controlling leakage current, the RibbonFET gate structure entirely wraps around the channel (as defined by the stack of silicon nanosheets at the heart of the device), minimizing undesirable leakage current when the transistor is off. Among other important characteristics, less leakage current means less energy wasted while a chip is operating.

Intel also claims that RibbonFETs are more flexible for designers than FinFETs. The number of ribbons, as well as their widths, can be adjusted to tailor the transistor's performance characteristics to the needs of a given cell.

PowerVia, Intel's implementation of a backside power delivery network, introduces a second novel approach to chip fabrication. As silicon processes have gotten denser and denser, efficiently routing both signal and power wires above the transistors has gotten more and more challenging as those wires compete for ever more precious real estate.

Instead of building up both power and signal wires above the transistor, the backside power delivery approach first creates the transistors and signal wiring on the front side of the wafer. In the next production step, the wafer gets flipped over, and the back side gets polished away until the transistor contacts are revealed. The power delivery metal layers are then connected directly to the transistors.

Intel says that PowerVia allows for 10% higher density and relaxed routing on the front side of the wafer. For power delivery, the back-side metal layers reduce power loss from the package to the transistor by 30%.

All in all, 18A allows for a 15% higher frequency at the same power as Intel 3 and a 1.3x density improvement compared to the same process. Designers can also choose to harness 18A's advances to deliver a 25% power reduction at the same performance level compared to Intel 3.

Cougar Cove P-cores and Darkmont E-cores: evolution, not revolution

Intel didn't go into fine detail on the changes it made to the Cougar Cove P-core on Panther Lake versus Lunar and Arrow Lake's Lion Cove, or Panther's Darkmont E-core versus Skymont. The improvements the company did discuss for the Cougar Cove P-core are typical refinements of an existing CPU architecture, such as an improved branch predictor and a more capacious translation lookaside buffer (TLB). As Intel says, "we didn't go in and change the width, we didn't change the depth, we optimized."

At a high level, Intel says that Cougar Cove now employs an "AI-based" power management approach that can adjust the aggressiveness of certain functional units, such as the prefetcher, on the fly in response to the demands of diverse workloads.

Another change in Cougar Cove is improved prediction behavior in some cases of memory disambiguation. As Intel puts it, when a processor is executing a program, it will perform load and store instructions for memory accesses; sometimes those instructions are connected. Cougar Cove has improved logic to predict when a load and store are connected and use that information to schedule the load correctly. When this prediction is correct, it can result in higher IPC.

Intel also notes that the move to the 18A process gave it the ability to grow some fundamental structures in Cougar Cove, and the TLB was one of the primary beneficiaries. A bigger TLB means that more complex workloads run faster and more reliably, according to Intel.

Cougar Cove also carries forward and refines branch prediction changes introduced with Lion Cove in Lunar Lake. Lion Cove featured improved branch prediction algorithms and delivered low-latency predictions even for branches far ahead in the instruction stream. Intel says Cougar Cove incorporates lessons it learned from shipping Lion Cove silicon to improve performance. It refined some branch prediction algorithms and grew the sizes of each level in the predictor to further lower latency. Cougar Cove can also store better metadata about past prediction results to improve accuracy.

Intel says this all means the Cougar Cove branch predictor can deliver lower latency, more prediction bandwidth, and higher prediction accuracy. These improvements positively impact energy efficiency and performance— a more accurate and more responsive predictor means the CPU core spends less time doing wasteful work and more time doing useful work.

Improvements in the Darkmont E-core are also largely evolutionary versus Lunar Lake’s Skymont. As with Cougar Cove, Darkmont can now use a dynamic algorithm to adjust the aggressiveness of its prefetcher to better balance responsiveness and power efficiency in response to the demands of varying workloads.

Like Cougar Cove, Darkmont offers improved branch prediction accuracy. It also saves power in the front end by employing loop stream detection, a technique that allows the front end of the chip to power down during certain instruction sequences. Darkmont also broadens the cases where the chip can employ nanocode sequences to execute complex instructions that traditionally would have been handled by an x86 CPU's microcode engine. Nanocode was introduced in Skymont to improve both performance and power efficiency.

As Intel puts it, the microcode sequencer is a giant ROM that comes into play when certain complex x86 instructions need to be executed. Loading from that ROM is a serial process, and it can only service one decoder at a time, meaning that other front end units will be blocked if they were also to need instruction sequences from the microcode ROM at the same time. Nanocode prevents this blocking behavior by taking some of those microcode instructions and embedding them into programmable logic arrays in each of the three front-end decoders of the E-core.

Since those PLAs are present in each of the three front-ends of the Darkmont core, Intel says the core can run instructions that formerly resided in microcode as "parallel, out-of-order microcode-like sequences." Intel says Darkmont has more cases and more optimized cases where its front-ends can employ nanocode and leave the microcode sequencer alone.

Mix and match

Not every part of a Panther Lake SoC uses 18A, of course. Intel uses the same "disaggregated architecture" concept that debuted in Meteor Lake and was refined on Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake. This approach separates different functional units of an SoC into individually fabricated "tiles" that are made in Intel's own fabs or at foundries like TSMC, then joined together using Intel's Foveros packaging technology.

In turn, each Panther Lake compute tile, fabricated in-house on 18A, is built up from three basic core complexes. A compute tile can (so far) include up to four Cougar Cove P-cores, up to eight Darkmont E-cores, and a separate "low-power island" cluster of four more Darkmont E-cores that are meant to "confine" suitable workloads to a lower-power compute domain for extra battery life, an idea introduced in Meteor Lake and refined further in Lunar Lake.

Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake both relied on a pair of Crestmont E-cores in this island that were limited in both power and clock speeds to maximize energy savings, but their limited performance meant that more power-hungry parts of the chip might be awakened more often if a task exceeded their limited capabilities. Lunar Lake got four Skymont E-cores in this island with their own power rail, which allowed them to be clocked higher and do more demanding work before tasks had to be shifted to the P-cores on that SoC.

As an evolution of Skymont, Panther Lake's Darkmont low-power E-cores allow more demanding tasks to stay confined to the low-power island for longer, and they can contribute to multi-threaded workloads for extra parallelism when it's needed. They're not on the main ring bus that connects the main clusters of P- and E-cores on the Panther Lake SoC, however, so they don't share the L3 cache of the larger core cluster. Instead, they have access to a power-efficient 8MB "memory-side cache" that's shared with all the other compute agents on the tile.

This side cache is coherent with the rest of the cache hierarchy across the chip, and coherence among all the caches on Panther Lake is managed by a home agent that communicates with separate coherency agents on each compute domain.

The 18A compute tiles also include Intel's fifth-generation NPU, seventh-generation image processing unit (IPU) for use with premium webcams in laptops, and Xe media and display engines separated from the graphics tile.

For more information on the Xe3 graphics architecture and the two iGPUs that use it on Panther Lake, as well as software and power management improvements, check out our dedicated article.

Three's a crowd

So far, Intel has created two different 18A compute dies that it mixes and matches with two different integrated GPUs (and possibly two different I/O tiles) to create three distinct Panther Lake SoCs, each with different cost and performance targets.

The smallest Panther Lake SoC has four P-cores paired with four low-power E-cores, just like we saw with Lunar Lake. Intel didn't disclose the full specs of its cache hierarchy, but since it lacks higher-power E-core clusters with their own L3 cache, our educated guess is this chip likely only has 12MB of cache shared across its four P-cores. It includes a small Xe3 GPU that offers up to four Xe3 graphics cores. This chip can use traditional DDR5 SO-DIMMs or LPCAMM modules at speeds up to 6800 MT/s, or soldered LPDDR5X running at up to 6400 MT/s.

For storage and peripheral controllers, the platform controller tile on the baby Panther Lake SoC offers 12 PCIe lanes - four Gen 5 and eight Gen 4 - which is enough to connect a Gen 5 SSD and perhaps lower-end storage devices or a discrete GPU. Between its relatively low core count, modest graphics horsepower, and limited memory speeds, we're likely to see this chip in more entry-level laptops that prioritize light weight and battery life over absolute performance.

The midsize Panther Lake SoC adds eight E-cores on a ring bus shared with the four P-cores, in addition to the four low-power E-cores in their dedicated island. Intel says this compute die has up to 18MB of shared L3 across the P- and E-cores. This midsize SoC keeps the same 4 Xe Core graphics tile as the small SoC.

This chip can take advantage of faster memory than its smaller sibling. Like the small chip, it can use both DDR5 modules or soldered LPDDR5X, but it supports DDR5 at speeds up to 7200 MT/s and LPDDR5X at up to 8533 MT/s.

The midsize Panther Lake chip also has expanded PCIe connectivity from its larger platform controller tile: as many as eight PCIe Gen 4 lanes and 12 Gen 5 lanes. Intel wouldn't comment on particular Panther Lake OEM designs in the pipeline, but between its expanded compute resources, richer PCIe connectivity, and support for higher-speed memory versus its smaller sibling, this chip seems well-suited for pairing with a discrete GPU in thin and light laptops, an approach that some Intel partners took with Meteor Lake chips.

The largest Panther Lake SoC retains the same 4P+8E+4LPE CPU core configuration as the midsize SoC but adds a much larger and more powerful 12 Xe3 Core GPU to the package. Intel restricts the memory options that partners can employ with this chip, likely so that it can get adequate memory bandwidth to feed all of those GPU execution units. It can only use LPDDR5X memory and supports the fastest transfer rates of any Panther Lake product: up to 9600 MT/s.

This big chip drops back to the more limited I/O tile with eight PCIe Gen 4 and four PCIe Gen 5 lanes, which is likely an indication that it's targeted at the exploding handheld gaming market and premium thin-and-light laptops that can still game when needed. Pairing discrete GPUs with this version of Panther Lake doesn't make a ton of sense from a system design standpoint.

Performance projections

Intel offered a high-level preview of single-threaded performance with Cougar Cove, suggesting that the new P-core can deliver 10% higher performance at similar power to Lunar and Arrow Lake, or 40% lower power at similar performance in less demanding workloads.

The multi-threaded performance story for Panther Lake is a bit muddier. Intel claims that Panther Lake can deliver 50% more performance at similar power to Lunar Lake, or 30% lower power for multi-threaded performance similar to Arrow Lake-H.

Of course, if we consider these charts in their entirety, Panther Lake can also deliver higher absolute performance at similar power to Arrow Lake-H, emphasizing the greater performance scalability of what we assume to be the 4P+8E+4LPE package.

Beyond these broad and rosy performance projections, Intel didn't discuss any specifics on clocks or power targets for Panther Lake during its presentations, but as with any modern laptop SoC, the frequency, power and thermal targets for these chips are likely to cover such a broad range of designs that it's hard to make generalized statements about their performance, and that's before we get into individual chip models within the product stack.

We'll have to wait and see what types of systems Intel's partners typically produce with Panther Lake SoCs inside before we can even begin to establish performance ballparks. Intel says that the first Panther Lake chips will ship before the end of 2025, and that it expects broad market availability starting in January 2026. Given that timeframe, it's probably safe to say that we will hear much more about Panther Lake products at CES.

According to the company, Intel is set to share details of its Panther Lake lineup of mobile processors next week. Now, leaks are starting to seep out ahead of the reportedly imminent announcements. A few weeks ago, the name "Core Ultra X" started popping up in the rumor mill with reliable tipsters reporting on a potential new branding that Intel would adopt for Panther Lake. Up until now, we didn't have any concrete info on this, but new leaks from one of the most trusted leakers in the business, the oddly-named Golden Pig Upgrade, have just filled us in on the purported details.

Intel's Xe3 graphics IP will debut on Panther Lake with every SKU featuring integrated graphics. The models with the highest-spec'd iGPUs are what will reportedly be referred to as Core Ultra X. The "X" designation allegedly represents 12 Xe3 GPU cores, a major uplift from the 8 maximum Xe2-based cores we had on Lunar Lake. But that's the thing — Panther Lake is not a Lunar Lake successor because that featured on-package memory; Panther Lake supports externally-mounted RAM. That's probably why the model numbering on Panther Lake is also shifted around.

Speaking of which, Golden Pig Upgrade lists four SKUs: three with the Core Ultra X designation and one without. Apparently, only Core Ultra X9 and X7 are getting the full-fat 12 Xe3 GPU cores, while the Core Ultra 5 midrange offering will have, at best, 10 Xe3 cores. So, overall, Core Ultra X means 12 Xe3 cores; Core Ultra 3x8 means at least 10 Xe3 cores; and Core Ultra 3x6 means less than 10 Xe3 cores. In general, Panther Lake will introduce more CPU cores across the board as well, alongside improved iGPUs, as explained below.

Now, all that being said, there's a slight twist in this narrative. A new leak that surfaced from Chiphell just a couple of hours later actually detailed the entire lineup, consisting of 12 SKUs that will launch this year. From that leak, it appears that there is, in fact, a Core Ultra 5 SKU as well, but it still has those 10 Xe3 Cores we mentioned earlier. This may mean that the "X" designation isn't strictly exclusive to the 12-core club, but this is a leak after all, so we'll have to wait and see. Given the discrepancy in core configs below, perhaps "X" just broadly refers to a high GPU core count.

What's more interesting, however, is how the SKUs are actually named. Instead of the Core Ultra X7 or X9, the "X" appears to precede the model number itself — Core Ultra 9 X388H, for instance. There's rumored information on a lot more models, so we'll leave you with a table (at the end) that goes over it all. It doesn't really matter how Intel names these chips; at the end of the day, we're in for a seemingly powerful upgrade regardless. Especially when it comes to integrated graphics performance, a big generational jump (Xe2-LGP to Xe3-LPG), combined with the increased core count, should give us exciting results.

Panther Lake is expected to be fabricated on the company's homegrown 18A process, and will feature an expanded LP-E island, alongside the typical P-Cores (Cougar Cove) and E-Cores (Darkmont). Intel is looking for a spiritual successor to Lunar Lake, hoping to achieve similar efficiency (battery life) but without the niche novelty tied to that generation. The fact that they're reportedly combining the naming schemes of Core Ultra 200V and Core Ultra 200H (Arrow Lake-H) could be evidence of that, and it should be enough to keep the crowd fed till the real upgrade, Nova Lake, shows up next year.

Intel has announced the unveiling of three new Intel Xeon 6 P-Core CPUs that it says are designed specifically to handle the most advanced GPU-powered AI systems. The new processors will debut in Nvidia's DGX B300 AI systems.

The new processors, replete with Intel's Performance-cores, also feature new Intel Priority Core Turbo (PCT) and Intel Speed Select Technology – Turbo Frequency, which the company claims delivers customizable CPU core frequencies to improve GPU performance for demanding AI workloads.

All three are available now, and the Intel Xeon 6776P also comes integrated in the Nvidia DGX B300, the company's latest AI-accelerated systems.

Intel says that the introduction of PCT and Intel SST-TF as a pairing marks "a significant leap forward in AI system performance." PCT should allow for the dynamic prioritization of high-priority cores, enabling higher turbo frequencies. Meanwhile, lower-priority cores operate at base frequency in parallel to optimize resource distribution. PCT can reportedly run up to eight, high-priority cores at elevated turbo frequencies, according to Intel.

Intel's Xeon 6 CPUs include up to 128 P-cores per CPU and 20% more PCIe lanes than previous-generation Xeon processors, with up to 192 PCIe lanes per 2S server. Intel also claims Xeon 6 offers 30% faster memory speeds compared to the competition (specifically the latest AMD EPYC processors), thanks to Multiplexed Rank DIMMs (MRDIMMs) and Compute Express Link, and up to 2.3x higher memory bandwidth compared to the previous generation.

Intel says its P-Core Xeon 6 processors have 2 DIMMs per channel (2DPC), and says the 2DPC configuration supports up to 8TB of system memory. It also says MRDIMMs boost bandwidth and performance, all while reducing latency. The new CPUs also feature up to 504 MB L3 cache for faster data retrieval.

Intel Xeon 6 processors also feature Intel AMX, which can offload certain tasks to the CPU. Intel confirmed AMX now features support for FP16 precision arithmetic, which enables efficient data pre-processing and critical CPU tasks in AI workloads. Alongside its three new P-Core processors, Intel has also added a B-variant 6716P-B.

Intel demoed working Panther Lake Core Ultra 300 silicon for laptops, its first chips based on its crucial 18A process node, here at Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan. Unlike the first public demoes at CES 2025 that merely showed the chips powered on, Intel put Panther Lake its paces in real-time rendering and AI applications, showing that the silicon is healthy and on-track for retail availability in early 2026. Intel also shared more information about its performance and power consumtpion expectations for the new chips. 

As you can see in the image above, Intel also had a Panther Lake chip on display, enabling us to see how the CPU, GPU, I/O tile, and SoC tile are arranged on the package. These chips are thought to come with Cougar Cove P-cores and Darkmont E-cores (you can see the unconfirmed leaked specifications of some of the chip models here). 

Intel says the Panther Lake chips blend the power efficiency of Lunar Lake with the performance of Arrow Lake-H, noting that while the chips will be in production in the second half of 2025, presumably launched at CES, full retail availability will not come until early 2026. Intel did tease that the chips will come with the next-gen integrated graphics with XMX graphics, but aside from saying the iGPU performance will be closer to Lunar Lake than Arrow Lake, the company didn't elaborate. These iGPUs are thought to be based on the Xe3 architecture.

Intel ran its Panther Lake benchmarks on two Reference Validation Platforms (RVP) that you can see in the above album. These platforms are used to validate the design and emulate real-world conditions. Both RVPs were equipped with a heatsink and fan, so they were presumably operating without thermal constraints. 

Intel demoed one system running the newly-resurrected Clippy as a large language model to demonstrate that the chips are running AI workloads. The presenter used the system to write game code in Python code. Intel didn't share performance metrics from the benchmark. 

Intel also demoed a system running Da Vinci to edit and manipulate video using local AI processing to process the video, enabling fast manipulation of the video clip, such as changing backgrounds, clothing colors, and adding flying text to the clip. 

Intel also displayed a running developer kit that 300+ developers with ISVs are using to enable software support for the coming chips. Intel demoed the system being used for image editing with auto-coloring and upscaling features, powered, of course, by AI. As you can see in the album, the developer system is quite compact. Intel also had a host of laptops on display from its OEM partners. 

Intel's Panther Lake appears to be on track for its launch schedule, which bodes well for the company's immensely important 18A process node. Intel teased that the next steps are to release concrete speeds and feeds along with more information about the various chip models. We expect those to come trickling our over the next several months. 

It's the final day of Computex 2025, and things are winding down here. We'll still be bringing you updates, pictures from the floor, and more, and some recaps of all the biggest and best announcements.

In the meantime, sit back, relax, and wind down with us as we close out another year of Computex.

I come to Taiwan for the tech, but the affordable, high-quality coffee is what keeps me going

Taipei is great for a lot of reasons. But as a bit of a coffee addict and snob, I really appreciate the abundance of coffee shops and roasters here. And the coffee (like most food here) is pleasantly affordable.

This iced Americano (unfortunately, the cold brew was sold out) from one of my favorite spots, Coffee Moon, was the equivalent of about $3. And that’s on the expensive end. Major chains, like Louisa Coffee (I recommend the egg and peanut butter breakfast sandwich), tend to be cheaper. There are a lot of Starbucks here as well, but I’m not a fan – especially when there are so many other options.

I picked up some fresh-ground coffee for my travel-friendly Aeropress at Ikari Coffee (I like to think this chain is the Ikari Warriors retirement plan) for about $6 – enough for a week’s worth of early mornings and late nights, and then some. It’s going to be hard to go back to the $5 Dunkin’ cold brew when I get back home, even if the sizes are much bigger.

-Matt Safford

Picked up some spicy Guai Guai at 7-11, no Lisa Su or TSMC flavors to be found

There are plenty of tasty and interesting snacks to be had at Taipei’s night markets or the many (many) convenience stores. But I could help but pick up a couple of bags of spicy Guai Guai when I saw them today.

For those not in the know, this brand of Cheetos-like (but usually sweet) snack is part of a tradition or superstition (take your pick) where engineers and tech workers place the snacks in and around important machines to help assure they function without problems. The phenomenon is so widespread that we’ve seen both TSMC- and AMD / Lisa Su-branded versions of the snacks debut (and reportedly quickly get bought up) in the last couple of years. And of course, both companies have seen new levels of success in the past several years. Maybe someone should tell Intel’s new CEO to invest in some blue Guai Guai.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t find any of the TSMC or Ryzen varieties of the snacks, so these spicy ones will have to do. I’m going to leave them sitting on my laptop overnight, because it has a bad habit of blue-screening every week or so. Maybe the snacks will keep that from happening until I get home (or at least until I’m done reporting from Computex). If it doesn’t work, I may have to ask AI for some help with my crash dumps.

-Matt Safford

I both love and hate Taipei’s PC and component ads

I’ve been on the ground (and sweating) in Taipei for a few days now, and one of the first things that always strikes me here is the plethora of billboards and signs for various laptops and PC components.

Sure, a lot of this gets ramped up ahead of Computex, and many are in and around the Guang Hua Digital Plaza area, where there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of shops and storefronts that sell pretty much everything PC related, from high-end gaming laptops to obscure PC cases, and entire stores dedicated to MSI, Asus, Aorus – there’s even a store that pretty much only sells Transcend storage devices and media.

But the ads exist away from the main tech district as well. Today I was walking to a record shop in an arts district, looked up and saw, of all things, a slim vertical billboard for power supply maker, Seasonic.

And later, as I was headed into an MRT (subway) station, making my way back to my hotel, there was a big banner for AMD’s Ryzen 9000 CPUs above the train platform.

The only other place I’ve seen ads like this for PC components and the latest laptops is in Tokyo’s famous Akihabara neighborhood during a visit in 2015 – where I bought a random wafer of chips at the back junk tech store that, sadly, was far too fragile to survive the trip home.

On the one hand, it’s cool to see the PC hardware we obsess over getting the kind of treatment and attention that is more typically afforded to the latest attempt at a blockbuster movie or a tech startup flush with cash and looking to build brand recognition. And I certainly find ads for components more interesting and less annoying than most ads I see walking around our office neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan.

But considering how much I already spend on PC hardware and related tech, I am not sure I’d want to be regularly be surrounded by ads reminding me that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D exists, making my perfectly capable 7950X feel outdated and inadequate, or that my RAM or storage isn’t as fast as it could be.

Sure, signs and billboards that are more targeted to my PC interests are cool to see here in Taipei, but I really don’t need any more “help” deciding when it’s time to upgrade. After all, if I spend all my money on new tech, I won’t have any left over to buy old records.

-Matt Safford

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shows off Nvidia RTX 5060

The Nvidia keynote is underway and most of what CEO Jensen Huang is talking about has to do with AI development, not desktop computing. However, he just showed off the new RTX 5060 on stage, flashing an Asus-branded RTX 5060 GPU and an MSI laptop with RTX 5060 inside.

Huang didn't share any details about the cards, but lots of information has already come out. For example, we reported yesterday that the RTX 5060 is 25% faster than the 4060 with frame generation enabled.

While he spoke, Huang stood in front of a digital scene of a pond in a European city (it looked like Italy). He said that an RTX card (perhaps the 5060) was rendering only 1 out of every 10 frames in the scene, which showed candles floating over water. Instead, he said DLSS was generating 9 out of every 10 frames.

This is probably all we'll hear about PC gaming during this keynote.

"You know, when you're CEO, you have many children, and GeForce is here, and now all of our keynotes are 90% not GeForce," Huang said. "But it's not because we don't love GeForce. GeForce RTX 50 series just had its most successful launch ever, the fastest launch in our history. And PC gaming is now 30 years old. So that tells you something about how incredible GeForce is."

Intel demos Panther Lake

Day 1 of Computex 2025 is in full swing, and Intel is demoing working Panther Lake Core Ultra 300 silicon for its laptops, the first to use its 18A process node. We've been shown real-time rendering and AI applications ahead of its early 2026 launch.

• Intel demos running Panther Lake systems, touts performance and power efficiency improvements

Nvidia NVLink expansion

One of Nvidia's biggest announcements at Computex 2025 is a new NVLink Fusion program which allows customers and partners to use NVLink in their own custom rack-scale design. Here are all the details...

• Nvidia announces NVLink Fusion to allow custom CPUs and AI Accelerators to work with its products

Morning folks, Stephen here picking up the live blog until 1pm ET - we're all over the Computex trade floor bringing you the latest insights and news, so stay tuned!

Getting strong "secret government operation" vibes from this scene outside of the Grand HiLai Hotel near the main Computex buildings today. I get it, arm, you're the future of efficient computing (maybe). Please don't call the black helicopters on me.

- Matthew Safford

New Acer monitors

Acer has unveiled the new Nitro PG271K monitor, featuring 4K at 72Hz, with DFR for 1080p at 144Hz, 0.5ms response time (GTG), USB-C, and HDMI ports.

There's also a new 32-inch ProCreator and a new portable PD163QT. Gamers will love the new Nitro GA341CUR W0, a 34-inch UWQHD display with a 240Hz refresh rate.

Nvidia G-Sync comes to Samsung's big screen

Samsung has announced that it is finally adding support for Nvidia G-Sync in its 2025 OLED TV lineup, starting with the S95F.

The return of Windows 7

We've all seen broken McDonald's order consoles running Windows 98 or some other such monstrosity, but how about this Computex display board that appears to have malfunctioned, revealing Windows 7 underneath.

Intel's new Arc Pro B50 breaks cover

Intel has just unveiled its brand new Arc Pro B50, a compact graphics card for workstations with 16GB of VRAM and a starting price of $299. There's also a new Pro B60 with a hefty 24GB with a price tag of roughly $500 per unit.

• Intel launches $299 Arc Pro B50 with 16GB of memory, 'Project Battlematrix' workstations with 24GB Arc Pro B60 GPUs

MSI's new AI-powered 500 Hz beast

MSI's new X50 is a QD-OLED monitor and a 500 Hz refresh rate, but the headline is actually its new AI Care Sensor, which can detect when you're not looking at the monitor, powering down accordingly to reduce burn-in.

• MSI’s new 500 Hz QD-OLED monitor leverages AI tech to save it from burn-in

Maxsun dual-GPU card

Alongside the aforementioned new Intel Arc Pro offerings, there's a brand new partner card from Maxsun that jams two Arc Pro B60 chips onto a single graphics card, replete with 48GB of total VRAM, or 96GB in a two-card configuration.

Cheaper than a 50 Series...

Want to score some Computex swag without splashing out thousands on the best graphics card? Head on down to the Nvidia truck and buy a Jensen Huang shirt for $37 instead.

Nvidia's new supercomputer

Nvidia announced at Computex that it would be working with Foxconn to build an AI supercomputer in Taiwan featuring 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs.

• Nvidia teams up with Foxconn to build an AI supercomputer in Taiwan

MSI's new desktop AI supercomputer

As promised, MSI has unveiled its new EdgeXpert MS-C931 supercomputer, powered by Nvidia DGX Spark and capable of 1,000 TOPS FP4 performance.

• MSI unveils EdgeXpert MS-C931 desktop AI supercomputer powered by Nvidia DGX Spark

Nvidia: No evidence of AI chip diversion

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says there is no evidence of AI chip diversion to blacklisted nations, in response to questions at Computex. Huang said countries and companies understand the rules and want to continue doing business with Nvidia.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says ‘There’s no evidence of any AI chip diversion’

Noctua's triple-fan RTX 5080

Check out ASUS' new Noctua triple-fan RTX 5080, as well as it's new external GPU dock, which we've been having a look at over on the floor.

• Asus unveils Noctua triple-fan RTX 5080, new external GPU dock, and more at Computex

Some holiday snaps...

Computex 2025 isn't all motherboards and silicon; here are some snaps of the locale here in Taipei.

Asus's RTX 5060

The RTX 5060 (and the long-awaited RTX 5060 driver) are now here, as is Asus' new RTX 5060 laptop lineup.

• Asus adds the RTX 5060 to its gaming laptop lineup, tweaks TUF A14 with better cooling

Asus ups the ante with the 610 Hz ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG gaming monitor

The ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG is the latest among the growing trend of 500 Hz+ gaming monitors. Asus is targeting the 24.1-inch ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG at the esports gaming crowd, and you’ll need one of the best graphics cards for gaming to get the most out of its insane 610 Hz refresh rate.

While Asus touts the 610 Hz refresh rate, it is achievable through overclocking – the panel has a native refresh rate of 600 Hz. Another thing to note is that this monitor uses a TN panel. TN panels aren’t known for their prowess in color reproduction, brightness, or viewing angles. However, Asus says that the ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG uses the latest iteration of its “Super TN” panel to combat some inherent deficiencies; notably improved color and boosted brightness levels (up to 370 nits).

Although the ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG doesn’t have RGB lighting effects that we typically expect from ROG products, it does have an attractive design, and is adjustable for height, tilt, and swivel. As for connectivity, you’ll get DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.1 ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

• Asus debuts 24-inch 610 Hz Full HD gaming monitor with a Super TN panel

Wood you believe it? Asus' ProArt GeForce RTX 50 family brings wood grain finishes, USB-C connectivity, and even M.2 support

Wood grain trim isn’t usually associated with PC components, let alone graphics cards. But that’s exactly what we have in store with the Asus RTX 50 Series ProArt series. All the graphics cards have a wood grain finish for the fan shroud, giving them a classy look over the more exhaustive use of RGB that we see in many high-end graphics cards.

But it goes beyond the wooden aesthetics; all four members of the ProArt RTX 5080 family include USB-C ports for connecting monitors of peripherals to offer “better versatility for content creation workflows.” The ProArt GeForce RTX 5080 OC goes one step further by including an M.2 slot for plugging in an SSD.

If you’re looking for a top-performing graphics card that offers more than just good looks as a side dish, the ProArt family seems like a good option to pursue – that is, if Asus can keep pricing in check.

• Asus RTX 5080 ProArt comes with a wood grain finish and M.2 slot option

This could be the new fastest SSD

At the moment, the Crucial T705 is the fastest consumer SSD on the market, hitting random reads and writes of 1.55 and 1.8M IOPS respectively. However, today at Computex, Crucial announced its successor, the T710 which promises to be 28 percent faster in reads and 42 faster in writes.

We have a full article with lots of details on the Crucial T710 right here.

The T710 will be available at an undetermined price in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB capacities. It will come with and without a heatsink. The heatsink itself will be a slim 11mm thick.

The drive is one-sided and also promises low enough power to work well in a laptop, without massively draining the battery. It uses an SMI SM2508 SSD controller and 276-layer G9 TLC NAND to achieve these results.

Teamgroup is known for its radical cooling concepts that it demos at Computex every year, and 2025 is no exception. This year the company had a triple-M.2 all-in-one liquid cooler for those of you that simply can't cram enough storage into your rig. The company also had a new dual M.2 SSD and CPU cooler on display, too. Yes, the cooled liquid flows from the rad to the SSD first, thus preventing it from getting pre-heated liquid flowing from the CPU.

Good morning!

Good morning and welcome back to day two (one) of Computex 2025! Stephen here for the next eight hours, keeping you posted with everything going on at Computex, including live insight from the floor here in Taipei! While you were sleeping, here's what you missed...

• Asus debuts 24-inch 610 Hz Full HD gaming monitor with a Super TN panel
• Crucial announces T710 SSD with 14.9 GB/s of performance, X10 portable SSD up to 8TB
• MSI brings AMD-based AMD gaming handheld, updated mid-range gaming laptops to Computex

New Razer Blade 14

Razer has unveiled its new Blade 14 laptop at Computex. Sporting the Nvidia RTX 50-series (either the 5060 or 5070), it's the thinnest-ever Razer laptop of this size. There's also a new 5060 option for the larger Razer Blade 16.

• Razer unveils new Blade 14 laptop with Nvidia RTX 50 series GPUs and 3K 120Hz OLED display

Ascent GX10 special edition?

The Asus Ascent GX10 costs around $2,999 for the privilege of Nvidia GB10 packed into a tiny form factor. How much the markup is on this one is anyone's guess...

InWin celebrates 40 years with... this...

InWin is celebrating 40 years with this insane ChronoMancy case. It looks a bit like a prosthetic leg, is over 1 meter tall, and opens up like Iron Man's suit when you wave a magic wand at it. Standard...

• InWin celebrates 40 years with the ChronoMancy — futuristic 1.1m case opens with the wave of a wand

Unlimited poweeeeeeeer

The new Asus Pro Workstation is a 3000W power supply capable of powering four Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 cards by itself. It's so powerful you can even plug it into a standard U.S. outlet...

• Asus introduces 3000-watt PSU — enough capacity to power 4 RTX 5090s

Some colorful cases

Hyte's 2025 offering is a new X50 computer case that stands out thanks to its loud, vibrant colorway and design language reminiscent of a Smeg fridge. Check out the full details...

• Hyte’s new X50 PC case comes with a rounded aesthetic, high-performance mesh, and fun colors

Cherry's next generation switch

Alongside three others, Cherry has unveiled its brand new IK inductive switch, using patented inductive sensing technology it claims yields no mechanical wear and 50% less power consumption than magnetic switches.

• Cherry unveils next-generation keyboard switches with inductive sensing technology — claims no mechanical wear and 50% power reduction

MSI drops some insane gaming laptop artwork:

NZXT's new cases

NZXT has revealed not one but two stunning new cases, the H9 Flow and the H3 Flow. The former is a dual-chamber chassis with built-in fans and a controller hub, while the H3 is a Micro-ATX case. Despite this, it still features capacity for 10 fans!

• NZXT goes big and small at Computex with the H9 Flow and H3 Flow cases

AMD up next

Keeping on top of time zones during Computex is always a challenge - next on the agenda is AMD, who will host their Computex livestream and keynote tonight/tomorrow. It kicks off at 11 am UTC+8 on May 21, or 11 pm ET on May 20 if you're stateside. You can watch along over on YouTube!

Cooler Master's new panoramic case

The new Cooler Master MasterFrame 360 Panoramic is more fish tank than PC case, with a three-sided glass design that gives you unparalleled viewing of your internal hardware. There's also a new budget version of the QUBE 500, and more...

• Cooler Master unveils new pre-built PC with a 360 x 360mm radiator, new QUBE 500, and more

Turn any device into a Stream Deck...

One definite sleeper announcement from Computex 2025 is Elgato's new Virtual Stream Deck app, which lets you turn any device into a Stream Deck...

• Elgato now lets you turn any device you want into a Stream Deck

Corsair Air 5400

New from Corsair, the Air 5400 is the company's first triple-chamber design that can accomodate up to 360mm AIO cooling solutions, dumping the heat from the CPU directly out of the case.

• Corsair’s Air 5400 features a triple-chamber design for high-performance cooling

Phison's new controller could take the SSD speed crown

Earlier this week, we reported about the Crucial T710 SSD, which uses an SMI SM2508 SSD controller and boasts 2.2 million and 2.3 million read and write IOPS respectively. However, Phison seems ready to power drives which could close the T710 out of the water, thanks to its E28 controller.

We just reported that the Phison E28 controller promises 3 million read IOPS and 2.6 million write IOPS. That's along with 14.8 GB/s and 14 GB/s sequential reads and writes.

The controller is made using TSMC's 6nm process and it supports up to 32GB of TLC NAND. The E28 also boasts an eight channel layout that runs at 4200 MT/s and support for AES-256, TCG Opal and Pyrite encryption.

We visited Phison at Computex 2025 and grabbed a picture of a test system running CrystalDiskMark. In the pic above, you can see that the sample drive on display returned a 14,942 MB/s sequential read and a 14,149 MB/s write.

TeamGroup shows off thermoelectric SSD cooler

As we talked about in our article on TeamGroup's new Computex offerings, the company is showing a new SSD cooler that uses Peltier technology aka thermoelectric cooling. The company says that its AI-Flow X cooler will offer better cooling thanks to both this technology and to AI.

This looks very promising, but thermoelectric cooling has been known to have some drawbacks, such as generating heat. We'll have to see how this implementation fares.

Thermaltake embraces wood-accented cases

At Computex, Thermaltake is showing off its latest cases, which have Nordic, wood-grain accents. You could almost say that it's like going to Ikea, but hopefully with much easier building.

The new designs are available on several case lines, including the Tower 600, TR100, View 380/ 380 XL, View 270 and View 170 lines. The wood accents are either in light or dark wood.

No word yet on exact pricing or availability.

Adata courts enterprise customers with new Trusta brand

Adata is known for its SSDs and RAM, particularly under the XPG gaming sub-brand. Now the company is launching a new sub-brand aimed at enterprise customers.

Trusta (we guess they want you to trust it) will launch with two SSD lines: the T7 and the T5. We covered these in greater detail in our article about Trusta.

The T7P5, Trusta's flagship SSD, boasts sequential read and write speeds of 13,500 and 10,400 MB/s and uses either a U.2 interface or connects via E3.S or E1.S, all enterprise standards.

The T5 series has the T5P4B, T5S3B and T5S3 models. These connect weither via PCIe Gen 4 M.2 or 2.5-ich SATA connections.

AMD Keynote Underway and We're Blogging it

AMD's Jack Huynh, SVP and GM of Computing and Graphics, is delivering the company's Computex keynote. He started his presentation by talking about gaming and FSR. We're blogging the whole event at a separate AMD Computex live blog.

Good morning!

Day 2 is well underway here in Taipei and we have got a packed schedule to bring you. Stephen here taking you through the next eight hours, but first, a look at some of the things you may have missed overnight...

While you were sleeping:

The highlight overnight was the AMD keynote. The company unveiled its new Radeon RX 9060 XT and Ryzen Threadripper 9000, as well as the new Radeon AI Pro R9700, a PCIe 5.0 GPU for workstations and pro users.

• AMD launches Radeon AI Pro R9700 to challenge Nvidia's AI market dominance

The new RX 9060 XT launches on June 5, priced at $299, priced squarely in the firing line of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 which launched earlier this week.

• AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT launches on June 5, starting at $299

The AMD livestream broke before the keynote finished, but you can catch up on all of our coverage up to that point as it happened.

• AMD Computex 2025 Keynote

A display on your memory module?

A new innovation from V-Color adds a programmable LCD screen to its DDR5 DIMM modules. According to V-Color, the screen can be used to display information like capacity, speed bin, temperature, and voltage, all controlled through the company's app. The screen is on the side, so there are some obvious limitations, including how much capacity the format supports, but it still tops out at 48GB and also features programmable RGB LEDs.

• V-Color puts displays on memory modules

Another Jensen Huang signature...

The Nvidia CEO dropped by and added his mark to the flagship ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 50 Series on display:

Zotac's low-profile RTX 5060

New from Zotac at Computex is this low-profile RTX 5060. They carry the same GPU and VRAM as the full-sized boards, but offer only three display outputs and a neat single-fan setup.

• Zotac preps low-profile GeForce RTX 5060, Mini-ITX RTX 5060

113 GB/s speeds

We got a demo of Phison's Apex RAID setup, and it did not disappoint. Using 32 new PCIe Gen 5 SSDs in a RAID configuration, they clocked read and write speeds of 113.6 GB/s and 104.6 GB/s, respectively...

• Phison's Apex RAID demo showed us blistering 113 GB/s speeds in Computex demo

I spent way too much money on Guai Guai merch at the Computex store

Every trade show seems to have its own shop of overpriced merch. I’ve seen them at CES, GTC, IFA, and elsewhere, and never really been tempted to buy anything – until today. When I arrived at the Nangan Convention Center this morning, a half hour before the trade show opened to press, I wandered down the narrow entrance area, looking for the giant inflatable Guai Guai bag that’s typically there every year.

What I found was not only the big bag advertising the tech-protecting snacks, but a whole table of Guai Guai-themed merchandise. And I knew instantly that I couldn’t walk away without buying something – or, more likely, some things.

But the shop wasn’t open yet, so a couple of hours later, when I had a half hour between meetings, I returned and snapped up a green glass coffee mug, two omamori magnets (the actual omamoris were sadly already sold out), and a small travel bag. At checkout, I was also given a bag of Computex 2025 Guai Guai and a foldable fan as free gifts with my purchase.

Was it the most sensible 2,644 NTD I’ve ever spent? Probably not. But I knew if walked away from this very specific trade show swag, that I would regret it. And hey, who couldn’t use something else in their lives these days that “keeps everything alright?”

If I make it back to Computex next year, I’ll consider that a success for my lucky Guai Guai Computex swag. But if I am here again in a year (Computex 2026 is scheduled to run from June 2-5), maybe I’ll skip the Computex shop for the sake of my wallet.

–Matt Safford

More Jensen autographs...

Add another Jensen Huang autograph to the roster!

Catch up on AMD

Missed the AMD Keynote at Computex? Don't worry, everyone did, because the livestream broke. Here's a great way to catch up:

New from Colorful

A G-Helmet PC case, RTX 50-Series laptops, and more, Colorful unveiled some of the most eye-catching tech of Computex 2025...

• Colorful unveils new RTX 50-Series laptops, wild G-Helmet PC case, and more at Computex

The latest from be quiet!

be quiet! showed off the latest it has to offer including new keyboards, coolers, and PC cases. There are awesome new wooden bases for the 900 series, and an upgrade to the Pure Loop 3.

• be quiet! shows off new keyboards, coolers, and PC cases at Computex 2025

Lian Li embraces tempered glass

A new range of cases and more from Lian Li reveal that the company is embracing tempered glass on its front panels, eschewing the mesh that has served it well in previous years.

We got a look at the new Lancool 4, Lancool 217 INF, O11D Mini V2, DAN Case B4, Vector V100, and Vector V200 cases, along with the HydroShift III AIO.

• Lian Li is replacing mesh front panels with tempered glass on its new Lancool cases

Check out Noctua's thermosiphon cooler

Many of us use AIO (All-in-One) coolers that have a pump on top of the CPU that circulates coolant through a radiator where a fan blows the heat away. At Computex, Noctua is showing off a different kind of AIO, one without a pump at all.

Noctua's protoype thermosiphon cooler has liquid on top of the CPU where the heat from the CPU causes the coolant to boil. When the coolant turns into a gas it naturally moves through the pump up to the radiator where it is cooled and turns back into a liquid again.

Once it's a liquid again, the coolant flows downward back to the water block on top of the CPU and the cycle continues. Noctua is demonstrating this with a 360mm radiator.

So what's the point? By eliminating the pump, you cut the noise. Is the noise from your AIO's pump significant? I guess it depends on the product and how sensitive you are to noise and how much other noise there is in your system. Even the thermosiphon cooler still needs fans (3x 120mm fans actually).

Finally, a real solution to the melting cables problem

The next-gen of Seasonic Prime power supplies will have a feature that deals with the problem of melting 12VHPWR connectors. As you may know, many people with RTX 40 and 50 series cards have had problems with melting connectors because their 12VHPWR connectors weren't plugged in properly. Then the GPU calls for an unbalanced power load and the cables melt and disaster ensues.

At Computex, Seasonic showed a prototype PSU with a set of sensors that alerts PC users of a malfunction if there's an abnormal voltage output. There will be an external device that connects to the PSU and shows this alert. The PSU will also power down to prevent melting. The PSUs with this tech, unfortunately, aren't due out until 2026.

Thermaltake shows off Minecraft-themed AIO cooler

Look at this! It's almost as good as having a Chicken Jockey ride on top of your CPU.

Thermaltake has a Minecraft-themed, 360mm AIO cooler on display at its booth and it's called the Minecube 360 ARGB. The cooler has four, 3.95-inch displays surrounding the pump. In the display, each of these had a Minecraft scene, but it seems like you could put any image you want on there.

The 360mm radiator has three Thermaltake SWAFAN EX12 ARGB fans on it that use magnetic quick connections and daisy-chain together. The entire thing is controlled by TT RGB software.

We don't have more details about the Minecube so we don't know the pricing or availability. We also don't know if it comes with any addition Minecraft-themed parts. One of the two units on display had some plastic Minecraft trees and blocks on the case, but we don't know if they come with the cooler.

Thermaltake shows off cool case mods

As usual, Thermaltake's booth was filled with case mods from some of the leading modders. The company hosts an invitational where artists from around the world turn its cases into all kinds of neat things. This year, the Black Myth Wukong case was the most impressive.

Here's what we saw.

Good morning and welcome to Thursday live from Taipei, it's a little after five local time and we've been pacing the trade floor. Stephen here for the next eight hours to take you through everything we've find. But first, we'll catch you up on what you may have missed overnight.

The return of an icon

MSI has unveiled plenty of new incredible tech at Computex, but the pick of the bunch might be the return of its iconic TwinFrozer and Cyclone cooling platforms, which have been deployed on a new RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060, respectively.

• MSI's RTX 5060 Ti TwinFrozer Retro and RTX 5070 Cyclone graphics cards go heavy on nostalgia

AMD FSR Redstone

New technology from AMD brings a major update to FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). Dubbed Redstone, it has new features it hopes to rival Nvidia's DLSS using three new features: neural radiance caching, machine learning ray regeneration, and machine learning frame generation.

• AMD's FSR Redstone uses machine learning to achieve parity with Nvidia DLSS

A new solution to melting connectors

Seasonic has unveiled new Prime power supplies that seek to solve overheating and melting power connectors by using sensors, a microcontroller, and firmware to keep on top of things, letting you monitor voltage output and current, as well as shutting down the system automatically if things get out of hand.

• Seasonic’s next-generation Prime PSUs to will try to stop connectors from melting

Old dog, new Tryx

Tryx's new Arcvision case features an embedded, curved display in the lower-left corner. The panoramic illusion is some of the most impressive stuff we've seen in case innovation at this year's event!

• Tryx's new PC case has an embedded curved display

Zalman goes with the grain

Seems like everyone is adding wood to their PC components these days, and the latest manufacturer to jump on the trend is Zalman with its new ATX and micro-ATX cases.

• Zalman shows off woodgrain ATX and Micro-ATX cases

The most egregious branding ever

Thermal Grizzly has unveiled a new bench table made in partnership with overclocking royalty der8auer. The "der8enchtable" is a modular, user-friendly benchtable is designed to facilitate fast and efficient PC hardware testing. Maybe we should get one of those...

• Thermal Grizzly’s open-air der8enchtable is designed for dedicated PC tinkerers

A $50,000 cooling solution

Enermax's immersion-cooled workstation can support four Nvidia RTX 5090s and up to 3,300 watts of power, using two-phase liquid immersion to keep temperatures under control. It looks incredible and surely performs, but the privilege will cost you $50,000 before you add any components.

• This $50,000 immersion-cooled workstation can support four Nvidia RTX 5090s

Zotac Zone 2 coming... soon?

Zotac has taken the covers off its new Zone 2 handheld, replete with a 7-inch AMOLED display and AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 APU. While we expect this to be the second iteration of its Zone handheld, it's officially a prototype at this stage and there's no pricing or launch info.

• Zotac Zone 2 demoed with Manjaro Linux and an AMOLED panel — 12-core Zen 5 CPU and 32GB RAM under the hood

HighPoint’s RocketStor 6542AW offers nearly a petabyte of external storage using eight 122TB SSDs

How does nearly a petabyte of storage sound to you? Although I’m probably going to sound like the 640K remark often (and probably mistakenly) associated with Bill Gates, I don’t think I could ever come close to filling the 976GB of storage that’s possible with the HighPoint RocketStor 6542AW.

Even though the RocketStor 6542AW is relatively compact (measuring 9.25 x 927 x 4.84 inches), it is home to eight 2.5-inch NVMe bays with hot-swap support. If you’re considering throwing in garden variety M.2 SSDs, slow your roll; it only supports U.2 and U.3 SSDs. To demonstrate the full power of the RocketStor 6542AW, Highpoint installed Solidigm D5-P5336 122TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Each SSD is rated for 7,400 MB/s reads and 3,200 MB/s writes. Although the external storage has a CDFP port that offers sustained transfer rates of up to 32 GB/s, the D5-P5336 SSDs are limited to “just” 28 GB/s.

If you want a RocketStor 6542AW, the price for the external storage solution is $1,799. However, if you max out at 976GB, you’ll need to add eight Solidigm D5-P5336 priced at roughly $16,000 each.

• This 976TB external storage solution with 28 GB/s transfer speeds likely costs over $130,000

Lian Li shows off power supplies with rotating power outlet

Worried about where to mount the power supply in your case? Lian Li's new RS series has you covered. The power supplies have outlets that can rotate, allowing you to put them in from either the back or the side.

These power supplies also have dual 24-in and 8-pin connectors on the front and left so you can choose to plug in from either location. There's also a mount below the rear connector set (CPU, PCIe, SATA connectors) that can hold a bundled USB hub.

The hub has both USB and fan controller ports so you can plug internal devices and coolers into it.

Good morning and welcome to the final day of Computex 2025 live from Taipei. Things are winding down here, so stay tuned for some more floor shots, recaps, and our awards.

Liquid-cooled RTX 50 series from Maxsun

Maxsun has unveiled one of its wildest graphics card yet, a concept RTX 50-series with liquid cooling and a full RGB LED shroud.

• Maxsun shows off liquid-cooled RTX 50 series GPU covered in RGB lighting

3,000W power supplies

3,000 W power supplies are taking over Computex. First we saw a 3,000 Asus PSU earlier in the week. Then we saw two from Super Flower.

• Super Flower shows off not one but two 3000W PSUs at Computex 2025

More power supplies

If 3,000W is a little over your requirements, how about this Lian Li offering with a rotatable power outlet for maximum flexibility...

• Lian Li flexes new PSU with rotatable power outlet at Computex 2025

The Best of Computex 2025

Computex is in the books, and it's the moment you've all been waiting for. Let's take a look at our winners in the Tom's Hardware Best of Computex 2025 Awards. Starting with AMD...

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9000 Series

The new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9000 Series is here. The flagship Ryzen 9 9995WX boasts 96 cores and 192 threads, with peak boost clocks of 5.4GHz and 300W TDP.

• AMD Announces Threadripper HEDT and Pro 9000-Series CPUs: 96 cores and 192 threads for Desktops and Workstations

AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT

The new AMD RX 9060 XT starts at $299 for the 8GB version, or $349 for the 16GB model. It has Navi 44 architecture and even beats the RX 9070 in boost clock speed (3,130 MHz). Could this be the value GPU of 2025 we've been waiting for?

• AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT launches on June 5, starting at $299

Phison E28 SSD controller

Phison's new E28 SSD controller delivers big efficiency gains thanks to a 6nm process note, but still delivers 14.8 GB/s of sequential read/write performance and 2.5 / 3.0 million random read/write IOPS. A wave of E28-powered SSDs are expected later this year.

• Phison's E28 controller's 14.8 GB/s, 3,000K IOPS, and 7W power draw could make it the new king of PCIe 5.0 performance

Asus ProArt RTX 5080

Asus wins for this creative take on the RTX 5080, accented with wood in a way that makes the card really stand out. After a week filled with wooden cases, a wooden GPU housing is a breath of fresh air.

• Asus RTX 5080 ProArt comes with a wood grain finish and M.2 slot option

Crucial T710 SSD

The new T710 promises 28 percent read speed increases and 42 percent faster write speeds over the T705, the best SSD for speeds right now.

• Crucial announces T710 SSD with 14.9 GB/s of performance, X10 portable SSD up to 8TB

Predator Triton 14 AI

The Triton 14 AI weighs 3.5 pounds and features a 14.5-inch 2880 x 1800 OLED screen. Under the hood there's a Lunar Lake Core Ultra 9 288V CPU with RTX 5070 graphics.

• Acer has a new pair of 14.5-inch laptops for gaming on the go

Corsair Air 5400

Corsair's Air 5400 case is an eye-catching design with a triple-chamber layout that dumps CPU heat directly out of the case via a 360mm AIO radiator.

• Corsair’s Air 5400 features a triple-chamber design for high-performance cooling

SilverStone FLP02

A highlight of the whole show and massive hit with our readers, SilverStone's FLP02 is a throwback case that even has faux floppy drives on the front.

• SilverStone reveals late-80s style tower PC case — proudly beige but thoroughly modern inside

Seasonic Prime Power Supplies

Seasonic's Prime Power Supplies feature sensors to detect voltage problems and even shut down your system to prevent damage, overheating, and dreaded melting connectors.

• Seasonic’s next-generation Prime PSUs to will try to stop connectors from melting

Asus ROG Falcata

The ROG Falcata is a split layout gaming keyboard with HFX V2 magnetic switches, and our limited hands on time had us massively intrigued.

• Asus ROG Falcata brings split layout and magnetic switches to competitive gaming

Cooler Master Elite case line

Cooler Master's case line-up stands out so much we have the whole lot an award. Each should cost less than $100, even the eye-catching curved glass models.

• Cooler Master plans to launch a curved-glass case for around $70 – at least outside of the U.S.

Lian Li V200

Lian Li's $110 case has two glass panels, touch controls, and a massive 8.8-inch screen embedded in the bottom chamber.

• Lian Li is replacing mesh front panels with tempered glass on its new Lancool cases

MSI X50 Gaming Monitor

MSI's X50 Gaming Monitor is a QD-OLED panel with a 500Hz refresh rate and 1440p resolution, and even has an AI sensor than can power down the panel when it senses you've walked off.

• MSI’s new 500 Hz QD-OLED monitor leverages AI tech to save it from burn-in

Asus ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG Monitor

Another incredible monitor we saw this year is the 610 Hz overclocked Asus ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG, sporting 1080p resolution.

• Asus debuts 24-inch 610 Hz Full HD gaming monitor with a Super TN panel

Thermaltake MineCube 360 Ultra ARGB AIO

Thermaltake's MineCube 360 is a 360mm AIO cooler with a 720 x 720 resolution screen that will show you delightful Minecraft screens.

V-Color Xfinity Manta DDR5 RAM

Our favorite RAM module from Computex is this V-Color Xfinity Manta DDR5 RAM that features a full-color LCD screen you can use to show stats like voltages, clock speeds, and more.

• V-Color puts displays on memory modules

Mark your calendars for Computex 2026

Computex 2025 is coming to a close. Its organizers have announced that next year's show will run from June 2 - June 5, 2026.

This year's show started on May 20, a bit earlier than usual. Next year, it's returning to a more standard timeframe.

That gives you about a year to come up with your Computex 2026 bingo card. And for our intrepid editors on the ground to recover from the jet lag.

— Andrew E. Freedman

AIO screens get even more complicated

Over at Antec's booth, we saw the Vortex View AIO cooler, which features a 360 mm radiator and a 5-inch display. While screens have been popping up on a lot of cooling pumps, this one stands out; the large screen is connected to the pump via a ball joint, allowing you to rotate it and angle it exactly how you want. It even gives you the option to place it either horizontally or vertically.

The cooler works with both Intel and AMD processors, including LGA 1851, LGA 1700, AM4, and AM5 sockets.

• Hands-on with the Antec Vortex View — a wild AIO cooler with a screen that rotates a full 360 degrees

Next on the schedule: Memorial Day

With Computex 2025 wrapped up, we turn our attention to Memorial Day sales. It's a great time to score some new hardware at bargain prices, and the deals are already coming thick and fast. Here are some of the highlights so far!

• AMD Ryzen 9950X3D: Now $699 (normally not available)
• Samsung 990 Pro (4TB): Now $309
• Alienware RTX 5090 Desktop: Now $4899
• Newegg: Up to 46% off SSDs
• Amazon: Save up to 40% on tech deals
• Best Buy: Up to $300 off laptops, monitors, & more
• Dell: Up to $700 off gaming PCs
• Lenovo: Save up to 59% on Lenovo laptops
• HP: Save over $50% on HP, HyperX, Omen, and Victus in the Memorial Day sale
• SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD: now $124 at Newegg (was $156)
• AMD Ryzen 5 9600X Processor: now $198 at Newegg (was $279)
• Samsung 990 Pro 2TB SSD: now $169 at Amazon (was $249)
• Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 265K: now $269 at Amazon (was $404)
• Dell S3222DGM, 32-inch 2K 165 Hz Monitor: now $259 at Best Buy (was $329)
• MacBook Air 13 (2025, M4 chip): 16GB / 256GB: was $999, now $899 at Amazon
• MacBook Air 13 (M4, 2025): 16GB / 512GB: was $1199, now $1099 at Amazon

AMD is reportedly going big on core-counts with Zen 6 mobile next-generation, as suggested by a new rumor from HXL, backed by several other leakers. Codenamed "Medusa Point", these APUs will reportedly carry up to 22 hybrid cores, based on Zen 6, with classic, dense, and low-power options. Since Zen 6 is at least a year off, and mobile versions might not arrive until early 2027, we need to be careful about putting too much faith in this leak.

Medusa Point is slated to be the follow-up to AMD's current Zen 5-based Strix Point APU series. We probably won't see a direct shift to Medusa Point as AMD is reportedly working on the Gorgon Point (Strix Point refresh) family, planned as an intermediate step.

That being said, architecturally, Medusa Point will switch to the Zen 6 architecture, which should be detailed by AMD sometime around Computex next year. The graphics engine will allegedly adopt the updated RDNA 3.5+ design, though RDNA 4 would've been the ideal choice for many. It's probable RDNA 4 won't make its way to the APU landscape, since AMD's next-generation graphics architecture, UDNA 1 / RDNA 5, is projected for release during the same timeframe.

The mainstream Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 offerings from Medusa Point have been purported to feature up to 10 hybrid cores, divided across four classic Zen 6 cores, four dense Zen 6c cores, and two new LP (Low Power) cores. These LP cores are very likely smaller than their Zen 6c siblings, with their Voltage/Frequency operation tweaked for maximum efficiency. This is complemented by an eight Compute Unit equipped RDNA 3.5+ based graphics engine, similar to the Radeon 860M. The iGPU is a downgrade from the current 16-CU design on the Radeon 890M, but this was likely done to free up space on the chip for other components.

Currently, Intel's Foundry division loses billions every quarter as it invests heavily in new process technologies and production capacity. However, the company hopes that the Intel Foundry unit will break even sometime in 2027, which will coincide with the rollout out Intel's 14A manufacturing technology and production start on 18A-P node. 

Intel this week reaffirmed that the first product made on its 18A (1.8nm-class) fabrication process, the client PC processor (codenamed Panther Lake), will hit the market late this year and will ramp next year. The manufacturing technology will also be adopted for Xeon 'Clearwater Forest' and some third-party products, but from Intel's Foundry business perspective, 18A is will be a proof-of-concept for external clients. If this production node is a success, more potential customers will adopt its successors, including 18A-P, and 14A (1.4nm-class). 

"I think we do need to see more external volume come from 14A versus versus 18A, said David Zinsner, chief financial officer of Intel, at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference. "We have […] a bunch of bunch of potential customers, and then we get test chips, and then some customers fall out in the test chips, and then there is a certain amount of customers that kind of hang in there. So, committed volume is not significant right now, for sure. But, you know, I think we have got to partly prove ourselves a little bit with our own product and eat our own dog food here, and then […] we start to see some engagement around customers." 

Zinsner admitted that if the company choses to use High-NA EUV lithography with its 14A process technology — as it plans to at the moment — its costs will go up initially. Intel hopes that advantages enabled by the new fab tools will outweigh those higher costs. 

It seems that the software divisions at AMD and Intel are setting the stage for their next-generation GPU offerings. The internal codenames for these GPUs, Intel's Xe4 and AMD's GFX13, have been spotted by Kepler and x86isdeadandback at X, as noted by VideoCardz. While this does not allude to the specifications, it shows that both teams are actively pouring resources into the development of their future graphics products.

Intel officially confirmed its fourth-generation Arc GPUs would be codenamed Druid, employing the Xe4 architecture, a while back. The firm has been notably quiet regarding its future GPU roadmap following Alchemist. With limited pre-launch hype, the desktop launch of Battlemage (Xe2) last December was also somewhat of a surprise. That being said, the successor to Battlemage, codenamed Celestial (Xe3), will arrive with Intel's Panther Lake CPUs, which are scheduled for HVM (High Volume Manufacturing) later this year.

Based on employee reports, Celestial has reportedly reached pre-silicon validation, where hardware design flaws are identified and resolved before committing to manufacturing. Tom Peterson's comments support this, stating Celestial's hardware is "baked", with software optimization the remaining task. He also added that the hardware teams have moved on to the next project, Druid (Xe4). Based on commits to the Dawn repository, developers are starting to integrate support for Xe4, which should fall under Intel's Gen15 umbrella.

Dynatron, a US-based company specializing in cooling solutions for consumer and enterprise-grade machines, has published product pages for next-generation Intel and AMD coolers via hardware detective momomo_us. While this data is preliminary and likely serves as a placeholder, it unofficially confirms Diamond Rapids (Intel) and Venice (AMD) as upcoming server offerings from CPU companies and their respective sockets.

Less than a year has passed since AMD's and Intel's current-generation server offerings hit shelves. We're already hearing rumors about what's coming next. AMD spilled the beans early, confirming Venice as the codename for its future EPYC processors, standing as the first HPC product to be fabbed on TSMC's N2 process and (expected to be) based on the Zen 6 architecture. Though unofficial, following two generations on SP5, Venice is rumored to advance to the SP7 socket.

Meanwhile, Intel has confirmed its E-core-only Clearwater Forest family, underlining the best IFS: 18A and advanced chiplet packaging, including Foveros Direct 3D stacking. The P-core rival to Venice is expected to be Diamond Rapids (potentially Xeon 7); however, official details remain scarce. Test tool listings point to these CPUs moving to the Oak Stream platform and its LGA 9324 socket, which likely boasts considerable I/O improvements over LGA 7529-based boards used by current Granite Rapids-AP (Xeon 6900) processors.

Intel made a slew of announcements at its Intel Foundry Direct 2025 event in San Jose, California, and finally shared performance metrics for its upcoming 14A process node, slated for risk production in 2027, touting headline improvements of up to a 35% reduction in power consumption. Intel also teased its new Turbo Cell technology, a customizable design approach geared to provide maximum CPU frequency and to boost performance for critical speed paths in GPUs.

The 14A and 14A-E nodes are the next generation after the company's 18A node. Intel says 14A will deliver a 15 to 20% performance-per-watt increase over 18A, which can be leveraged as either higher clock speeds or 25-35% lower power consumption at the same performance, depending upon chip-specific tuning. Much of this improvement is due to Intel's new direct-contact backside power delivery network, which the company has dubbed PowerDirect (more here).

Intel has also sprinkled in other new features to improve the node, such as a wider threshold voltage (Vt) range that enables a more expansive voltage/frequency curve.

The 14A nodes also deliver a 1.3X increase in transistor density over the 18A node. Intel has also revamped its RibbonFET transistors for 14A, now known as 'RibbonFET 2.' Intel hasn't shared details about the new generation of RibbonFET, but the general design provides improved transistor density and faster transistor switching by utilizing four stacked nanosheets surrounded entirely by the gate (you can see the cross-section with nmos and pmos transistors above).

Turbo Cells and Critical Paths

Intel's new Turbo Cells are a standout feature, but they are a bit complicated. Turbo Cells can be used for a multitude of purposes, but Intel specifically calls out that they will be utilized in the critical paths of the CPU and GPU, often referred to as speed paths. And for good reason.

Timing paths within a processor are routes that a signal travels along, through wires and logic gates, during normal operation. However, delays to those signals can interrupt the clock timing of the processor. The critical paths are those that have the longest total delay.

Because processors operate based on clock signals, the slowest critical path dictates the highest possible frequency limit of the entire chip, serving as a bottleneck to overall performance (there are distinctions here for the various clock domains, but the general principle holds true). Chip designers often use higher-speed transistors in these areas of a chip, but this comes at the cost of reduced transistor density and increased power consumption, as faster transistors are leakier and thus consume more power. The new Turbo Cells provide chip architects with a more refined tool to mitigate critical paths.

The 14A node features three distinct standard cell libraries, which use process node-specific building blocks (standard cells constructed with transistors) of pre-designed logic gates and circuit elements. Designers use electronic design automation (EDA) software tools to utilize the libraries during the design flow and generally lay them out in rows.

Intel's 14A has three different libraries: the 'tall' library has transistor cells optimized for high frequency (low density, leaky), the 'mid-size' library is optimized for performance per watt, and the 'short' library is focused on density for area- and power-sensitive applications. Intel has not shared density information for the various libraries yet.

Short libraries are used heavily in CPUs and GPUs to pack in the most transistors possible while keeping power density at manageable levels. That's where Intel's new Turbo Cells step in.

Turbo Cells are designed to enhance performance by increasing the transistor drive current for short libraries when they're used to create double-height libraries (the height of two standard rows), all while maintaining a high-density arrangement for optimal area efficiency.

The above graphic represents four different arrangements of nmos and pmos ribbons/nanosheets (pink and green) with varying widths and configurations to optimize drive current for different scenarios. The width of the ribbons can be adjusted, or they can be merged independently to create very wide ribbons for maximum drive current delivery. The various options provide designers with a robust toolkit for tailored implementations.

Intel says Turbo Cells can ultimately be used to mix in faster and less power-efficient cells with the power-efficient cells within the same design block to create the right balance of power, performance, and area (PPA) for any given use case.

Critical paths are the ultimate bottleneck; think of them as the weakest link in the chain. Intel's new Turbo Cells are designed to boost overall processor performance by speeding up those paths, but without making the compromises often used to solve the critical path problem. We'll have to wait until 2027 to see how that pans out.

Intel's new CEO Lip Bu-Tan took to the stage at the company's Intel Foundry Direct 2025 event here in San Jose, California, to outline the company's progress on its foundry initiative. Tan announced that the company is now engaging lead customers for its upcoming 14A process node (1.4nm equivalent), the follow-on generation of its 18A process node. Intel already has several customers with plans to tape out 14A test chips, which now come with an enhanced version of the company's backside power delivery technology dubbed PowerDirect. Tan also revealed that the company's crucial 18A node is now in risk production with volume manufacturing on schedule for later this year.

Intel also revealed that its new 18A-P extension, a high-performance variant of the 18A node, is now running through the fab with early wafers. Additionally, the company is developing a new 18A-PT variant that supports Foveros Direct 3D with hybrid bonding interconnects, enabling the company to stack dies vertically on top of its most advanced leading-edge node.

The Foveros Direct 3D technology is a key development because it provides a capability that rival TSMC already uses in production, most famously in AMD's 3D V-Cache products. In fact, Intel's implementation matches TSMC's offering in critical interconnect density measurements.

On the mature-node side of the operation, Intel Foundry has its first production 16nm tapeout in the fab now, and the company is also now engaging customers for the 12nm node it is developing in partnership with UMC.

Perhaps the most important developments at the show revolve around Intel's continued expansion with EDA and intellectual property (IP) partners that provide the critical tools and IP blocks that enable its customers to develop new designs with industry-standard design flows and tools. The company has also expanded its Intel Foundry Accelerator Alliance program to include the Chiplet Alliance and Value Chain Alliance programs.

Intel Foundry's progress comes during turbulent times in the semiconductor industry as geopolitical divisions threaten to fracture the global chip supply chain. Intel is currently the only US-based domestic supplier of leading-edge process node technology and advanced packaging capacity, a key advantage as tensions between China and TSMC continue to escalate. Despite TSMC's expansion of production in the US, a recent law passed by Taiwan now prevents the company from producing its most cutting-edge tech in the United States, leaving Intel as the only domestic foundry with both leading-edge chip production and R&D.

Naga Chandrasekaran, the Chief Technology and Operations Officer of Intel Foundry, and Kevin O’Buckley, the General Manager of Foundry Services, are also slated to deliver keynotes during the event, providing more details about the technology and roadmaps. We will update this article with additional information as it becomes available, but we have plenty to share to get started. Let's take a closer look at Intel's progress.

Intel 14A Process Node

Intel 14A Process Node

Intel's 14A, the next generation after 18A, is already in the works and scheduled for risk production in 2027. If all goes to plan, 14A will be the industry's first node to employ High-NA EUV lithography. TSMC's competing A14 (1.4nm-class) node is expected to arrive in 2028, but the Taiwanese company will not utilize High-NA for production.

Intel has already shared early versions of the Process Design Kit (PDK), a set of data, documentation, and design rules that enables the design and validation of a processor design, with its lead 14A customers. Intel states that multiple customers have already indicated their intention to build chips using the 14A process node.

Intel's 14A will have a second-generation version of its PowerVia backside power delivery technology. The new PowerDirect implementation is a more advanced and complex scheme that delivers power directly to each transistor's source and drain through specialized contacts, which minimizes resistance and maximizes power efficiency. This is a more direct and efficient connection than Intel's current PowerVia scheme, which connects to the contact level of the transistors with Nano TSVs.

TSMC's N2 node does not include backside power delivery; however, with A16, the company will employ a direct-contact backside power delivery network, dubbed Super Power Rail (SPR). A16 is essentially a derivative of the N2P node with SPR. The A16 node is expected to enter production in late 2026. TSMC's A14 will not leverage a backside power design methodology.

Intel's 18A-PT process node enables die stacking

Intel's 18A-PT process node enables die stacking

Intel's 18A node is the mainstream variant, but the company also has several 'line extensions' of the node, designated by different suffixes. These flavors of the underlying node are tailored for different use cases.

Intel has a new 18A variant up its sleeve; the new 18A-PT node that will provide the same performance and efficiency benefits as the performance-oriented 18A-P, but adds in Foveros Direct 3D hybrid bonding. This bump-less copper-to-copper bonding technique (meaning it doesn't use microbumps or solder to connect the two dies) fuses chips together with through-silicon vias (TSVs). Intel's implementation will employ a pitch of less than 5 microns, a distinct improvement over its initial goal of a 10um pitch by 2023, to fuse chiplets on top of the 18A-PT die. The pitch is a measurement of the center-to-center spacing between the interconnects, and lower values indicate higher density, which is better.

Notably, AMD uses TSMC's SoIC-X technology, a similar hybrid bonding approach, to fuse an L3 chiplet atop its X3D processors with a 9 micron bump pitch. TSMC's SOIC-X tech currently ranges from 4.5 to 9 microns, but the company has a 3-micron pitch offering on the roadmap for 2027. If productized effectively and on schedule, Intel's Foveros Direct 3D will dramatically improve its positioning against TSMC's packaging technology.

Intel's Clearwater Forest will be its first to use Foveros Direct 3D packaging, but the company hasn't disclosed the pitch for that specific product yet. Notably, TSVs are typically only included in the base die, and Clearwater Forest uses Intel 3-T for the base die with the Intel 18A compute dies stacked on top. Enabling TSVs for 18A will thus allow it to also have dies stacked atop, and SRAM cache is a logical use case.

Intel 18A process node updates

Intel 18A process node updates

As we reported last month, Intel's 18A (1.8 nm-equivalent) process node has entered risk production, marking the commencement of the first low-volume production runs of the node, with High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) scheduled for the end of the year. Intel did not specify which processors had begun production, but the timing generally aligns with expectations for its Panther Lake processors, which are expected to arrive at the end of the year. Intel's first 18A production will come from its Oregon fabs, but the company has already 'run the [18A] lot' through its Arizona fab, indicating it will soon begin production there as well.

The 18A node is the first in the industry to be productized with both a PowerVia backside power delivery network (BSPDN) and RibbonFET gate-all-around (GAA) transistors. PowerVia provides optimized power routing on the back of the chip to improve performance and transistor density. RibbonFET also offers better transistor density, along with faster transistor switching, in a smaller area through the use of four vertical nanosheets surrounded entirely by the gate.

The 18A node enters HVM in roughly the same timeframe as TSMC's competing 2nm N2 node. However, TSMC's N2 node does not come with a backside power delivery network, but it does have GAA technology with three vertical nanosheets. There have been some basic comparisons between the process nodes made based on presentations at a recent industry event. The general takeaway is that Intel's node is faster and lower-power than TSMC's, though TSMC retains the edge in density (and presumably cost). However, these distinctions could vary depending on the specific implementation in different chip designs.

Intel divulged today that it has wafers of its high-performance 18A-P node in the fab. This 18A variant features an optimized power and frequency curve, providing an 8% improvement in performance per watt. This can be leveraged as either higher clock speeds or lower power consumption at the same performance, depending upon chip-specific tuning.

The 18A-P node is design rule-compatible with the 18A node, easing the design process for customers. Intel is already collaborating with Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software vendors to enable broad support for industry-standard design tools, and it is also working with Intellectual Property (IP) designers to provide the necessary IP blocks, thereby simplifying implementation.

Mature Nodes: 16nm and 12nm continue advancing

Mature Nodes: 16nm and 12nm continue advancing

Intel Foundry not only addresses the leading edge of technology, but it is also working on several mature nodes. Intel's 16nm node, which is essentially a version of its 22FFL node that leverages industry standard design tools and PDKs, has a tapeout in the fab now.

Intel is also continuing its work with partner UMC to develop a 12nm node that will be produced in three of Intel's Arizona fabs beginning in 2027. In fact, Intel is currently engaging lead customer for this node. 12nm will be used primarily for mobile communication infrastructure and networking applications.

Takeaways, for now

Takeaways, for now

Intel canceled high volume manufacturing of the 20A node as a cost-cutting measure, but the company is now on the cusp of of production with with its18A node, marking a critical milestone as it looks to regain the manufacturing lead over TSMC. The addition of new line extensions, with the die-stacking-capable 18A-PT being a particularly strong advance, will help the company to further broaden its appeal to potential foundry customers.

The development of the company's 14A node is also well underway, signifying that the company is on track to providing a steady cadence of new nodes and features to the roadmap. We haven't yet heard any new details about Intel's plans for its 10A (1nm-class) process node yet, which is expected to begin development in 2027. Intel's press release also doesn't mention any new progress on its Intel 3 node, but we expect more details to emerge throughout the day.

Intel's event is focused heavily on displaying its broad portfolio of EDA, IP, and services driven by an ecosystem of indsutry stalwarts, like Synopsys and Cadence. The new Intel Foundry Chiplet Alliance is also an important development that will enable customers to mix-and-match chiplets into their design based upon interoperable and validated designs.

Intel's advanced packaging services are also of particular importance as they provide the fastest on-ramp to meaningful revenue generation. Intel did mention that it will make its 3D stacking Foveros implementation available to foundry customers, and noted a new partnership with Amkor. However, details are slight for now. We'll update this article as more information becomes available.

An update by Intel to the perfmon platform has added support for upcoming Panther Lake CPUs, listing their core architecture codenames and CPUID, via InstLatX64. This commit unofficially confirms that Panther Lake will employ Cougar Cove Performance (P) cores, while Darkmont will serve to power its Efficiency (E), and likely Low Power Efficiency (LPE) cores as well. Panther Lake is expected to launch later this year, succeeding current-generation Arrow Lake U/H offerings.

With Intel's flagship 18A in risk production, Panther Lake is scheduled for mass production later this year. Hence, it wouldn't be surprising if the bulk of Panther Lake arrives in Q1 next year, similar to how Meteor Lake rolled out. Make no mistake: Panther Lake isn't a successor to Lunar Lake, which was uniquely focused on efficiency as a one-off product, with on-package memory, limited TDP, and a power-optimized design. Current rumors indicate Panther Lake variants will sport up to 18 hybrid cores (6P+8E+4LPE) and 12 Xe cores, based on Intel's upcoming Celestial (Xe3) graphics architecture.

Intel positions Panther Lake as combining Arrow Lake's power and Lunar Lake's efficiency, but that's still a somewhat general claim. According to leaks, most Panther Lake systems will include traditional SODIMM/soldered memory, while some laptop designs might even support next-gen LPCAMM, combining fast and upgradeable RAM. Based on their TDP (rumored: up to 64W), Panther Lake chips are expected to power a wide range of devices, including entry-level laptops, handhelds, and gaming laptops. The company is even eying bringing this architecture to automobiles.

An Intel engineer has pushed an update to the lookup table for perfmon, adding Panther Lake as a supported architecture. Panther Lake has been marked with the "GenuineIntel-6-CC" identifier, assigning it to CPU Family 6, Model 204 (0xCC). In addition, the patch reports the Cougar Cove and Darkmont architectures for Panther Lake's Performance (P) and Efficiency (E) cores, respectively.

The first Arm processor was created in Cambridge in 1985. From humble origins and with limited resources, the ARM1 was designed to power the new Acorn Archimedes computer systems. The ARM1 featured 6,000 gates, while modern Arm processors feature more than 100 million. Similarly, the popularity of the "exceptionally power-efficient" Arm architecture has scaled incredible heights. At the latest count there have been more than 250 billion Arm chips shipped, in devices spanning sensors, and smartphones, to datacenters and beyond.

From the ARM Ltd turkey barn

Acorn wanted to create an ambitious follow-up to the BBC Micro, which used an 8-bit processor with a 16-bit address bus, namely the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor. Just two engineers, Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber, were tasked with this job.

Arm admits that the signature quality of its chips – their energy efficiency – was driven out of frugal necessity. Apparently, the firm couldn't afford ceramic chip packaging at the time of the processor's inception. Thus, the designers had to be very strict about efficiency, so plastic packaging would be acceptable.

The new processor ended up being a pioneering RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) chip, featuring just 6,000 gates and built using 3μm technology. Arm says the result was a "low power, fast, and incredibly energy efficient," processor. Nowadays, Arm chips feature over 100 million gates with graphics acceleration, and multi-core capabilities, and some are built using the latest 3nm fabrication technologies.

Momentum beyond the home computer niche

Arm chips first made waves outside the UK home and school computing niche in the 1990s. The first notable outside interest came when Apple chose an ARM chip to power its ill-fated Newton MessagePad handheld (1993). Nevertheless, this venture opened other device-makers' eyes to ARM chips.

Towards the end of the 1990s ARM chip sales growth would become explosive as we entered the mobile phone era. Nokia's 6110 was probably the key device to illustrate the promise of the ARM architecture, and it went on to become one of the best-selling mobiles ever.

Thankfully for Arm, its advances in processor generations kept pace with the move from dumb- to smartphones – and beyond, propelling popularity at a breakneck pace.

Today, and the future

More than 250 billion Arm chips have shipped, by the latest count, while the world's population is approximately 110 billion. In its anniversary blog post, Arm takes the mathematical opportunity to quip that "there are literally more ARMs than arms in the world."

As revealed by Phoronix, Intel's new '200S Boost' feature for its Arrow Lake chips results in little to no performance improvements on Linux. This parallels our 200S Boost testing in Windows, where memory overclocking from DDR5-6400 to DDR5-8000 accounted for most of the performance increases across gaming and productivity.

In the six months following Arrow Lake's debut, Intel has issued several fixes to extract every last bit of performance from these chips. The first wave was delivered via Windows Updates and updated BIOS versions in December, addressing several major issues. Following that, board partners released the long-awaited 0x114 microcode in January through BIOS updates carrying the ME19.0.0.1854v2.2 firmware.

Earlier this month, Intel debuted its IPO program in China, allowing System Integrators to offer enhanced power ratings and clock speeds under warranty. Similar to IPO, Intel's '200S Boost' profiles are opt-in BIOS presets available globally, enabling higher fabric, die-to-die, and memory-transfer speeds than stock.

Phoronix's test suite features the Core Ultra 9 285K, the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero (1801 BIOS), the RX 7900 XTX, and 32GB of DDR5-6400 memory. The tests were conducted in Ubuntu 25.04 with the Linux kernel version 6.14. Gaming remained largely similar to stock, with small improvements in Counter-Strike 2 and Batman: Arkham Knight, while Dirt Rally 2.0 saw a significant drop in FPS (456 FPS vs 406 FPS) when switching to the boost profile.

Intel on Thursday posted its financial results for the first quarter of 2025. The company's earnings were flat year-over-year; however, its losses deepened, and its gross margin declined despite lower operating expenses. While sales of the company's data center grade products demonstrated signs of growth, sales of client CPUs declined compared to the same quarter a year ago. Perhaps more importantly, Intel gave a bleak outlook for the second quarter due to macro challenges. 

In the first quarter of 2025, Intel reported flat year-over-year revenue of $12.7 billion, with a net loss of $821 million, nearly twice the amount compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company's gross margin declined to 36.9%, pressured by a product mix, startup costs for the 18A ramp-up, and uncertainties (which Intel referred to as macroeconomic headwinds).

The company's operating expenses — including research and development (R&D) as well as management, general, and administrative costs (MG&A) — declined to $4.8 billion in Q1 2025 from $5.9 billion in Q1 2024. However, despite this decline, the company's losses increased. 

"The first quarter was a step in the right direction, but there are no quick fixes as we work to get back on a path to gaining market share and driving sustainable growth," said Lip-Bu Tan, Intel CEO. "I am taking swift actions to drive better execution and operational efficiency while empowering our engineers to create great products. We are going back to basics by listening to our customers and making the changes needed to build the new Intel." 

Perhaps the most alarming sign is that Intel's Client Computing Group (CCG) revenues fell 8% year-over-year to $7.6 billion. This drop was attributed to weaker-than-expected PC demand, particularly in the consumer segment, competitive pricing, and unfavorable product mix that includes a plethora of products made by TSMC. Interestingly, many of Intel's customers favored older-generation products like Raptor Lake over newer, higher-cost platforms such as Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, and Lunar Lake. 

Despite these challenges, Intel noted demand for AI PCs from business customers, as well as enterprise fleet upgrades and Windows 10 end-of-service migrations, although this was insufficient to offset the broader softness in consumer sales. 

Intel's Data Center and AI (DCAI) business unit reported $4.1 billion in revenue in Q1 2025, achieving an 8% year-over-year increase, making it one of the few growth areas for the company. The performance was primarily driven by strong demand from hyperscalers for host CPUs in AI server deployments. However, the segment faced margin pressure due to competitive dynamics from AMD, product mix, and elevated demand for older-generation parts rather than newer offerings. 

Despite the revenue growth, Intel acknowledged macroeconomic uncertainty, potential spending pullbacks, and competition from AMD and Arm-based server solutions as risks that could affect DCAI performance in the coming quarters. The company remains focused on stabilizing market segment share and increasing average selling prices (ASPs) while preparing for the ramp of its next-generation server products. 

Intel Foundry reported $4.7 billion in revenue, reflecting a 7% year-over-year increase driven mostly by internal demand, particularly from Intel's own product groups for wafers and advanced packaging services. Despite revenue growth, the Foundry segment continued to operate at a significant loss, posting an operating loss of $2.3 billion, which remained roughly flat compared to the previous quarter. 

Intel's Lip-Bu Tan reiterated at the conference call that the company's Foundry success hinges not just on manufacturing capabilities but also on building customer trust, improving process design enablement, and supporting a broader range of customer flows. For now, the key mission of Intel Foundry is to ramp up production of Intel 18A-based Panther Lake and then Clearwater Forest processors in late 2025 – 2026 to prove that IF has a node that is competitive with TSMC's N2. 

Times are already tough for Intel, but now it turns out its new, heavily-promoted AI PC chips aren't selling as well as expected, thus creating a shortage of production capacity for its older chips. The news comes as the CEO announced looming layoffs and a poor financial report sent the company's stock tumbling.

Intel says its customers are buying less expensive previous-generation Raptor Lake chips instead of the new, and significantly more expensive, AI PC models like the Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake chips for laptops.

During the earnings call, Intel announced that it currently faces a shortage of production capacity for its 'Intel 7' process node, and the company expects this shortage to "persist for the foreseeable future." That's an unexpected shortage to have, as Intel's current-gen chips use newer process nodes from TSMC instead of Intel's older 'Intel 7' node. Intel is a master at production capacity planning, so its disclosure points to an unexpected surge in sales of the older 'Intel 7' products.

Intel explained that the shortage of its 7nm production capacity is due to an unexpected surge in demand for its "N-1 and N-2" products, a reference to its two prior-generation chip families. This trend is occurring in both the consumer and data center markets.

"What we're really seeing is much greater demand from our customers for n-1 and n-2 products so that they can continue to deliver system price points that consumers are really demanding," explained Intel's Michelle Johnston Holthaus. "As we've all talked about, the macroeconomic concerns and tariffs have everybody kind of hedging their bets and what they need to have from an inventory perspective. And Raptor Lake is a great part. Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake are great as well, but come with a much higher cost structure, not only for us, but at the system ASP price points for our OEMs as well."

Bernstein Research's Stacy Rasgon pressed Holtahaus about the implications for the company's upcoming Panther Lake chips, which are set to launch at the end of the year, especially given that the looming tariff disruptions have not yet occurred.

Holthaus said the Panther Lake launch remains on track and the company expects continued success in the commercial market, which she said typically precedes broader consumer adoption. Notably, she did not directly address the company's expected next-gen AI PC adoption for consumer laptops. Regardless, the company also continues its expansive work to promote and cultivate a growing developer ecosystem to unleash the power of its AI wares.

However, the fact is that AI still doesn't seem to have the 'killer app' that would send waves of customers to stores to purchase an expensive new laptop. Instead, most of the new features revolve around built-in features in existing applications, such as chat and productivity software, that are more nuanced and not quite flashy enough to spark a wave of adoption.

Expanding its wings into the automotive ecosystem, Intel shared its upcoming SDV (Software-Defined Vehicle) SoC designs at Auto Shanghai 2025 yesterday. Slated to be the industry's first disaggregated design, the company presented its second-generation SDV SoC, internally codenamed Frisco Lake. A detailed investigation by 3elife, a Chinese tech and news publication, purports these SoCs are derivatives of Intel's Panther Lake design, with their successor allegedly based on Nova Lake.

Software-defined vehicles are automobiles where a majority of the functionality is handled through software, rather than traditional physical, mechanical, or electronic components. Compared to desktops, x86 has seen limited adoption in the automotive industry, primarily due to stringent power consumption requirements, real-time processing demands, and safety and security concerns.

However, as ADAS, autonomous driving, in-car experiences, and the need for high-performance computing in vehicles grow, Intel is positioning itself to gain traction in this market. Last year, the company released the 225W Arc A760A, offering a PC-like experience from the comfort of your car. The Raptor-Lake-based Malibou Lake platform represents Intel's latest SDV offering, featuring up to 14 cores (6P+8E), 24MB L3 cache, 96 EUs, and support for eight cameras, slated for a Q4 2024 launch.

Yesterday, Intel shared several slides detailing Frisco Lake, officially poised to deliver 10 times better AI performance and 61% higher efficiency than current offerings, presumably Malibou Lake. In addition, the inclusion of an Xe3 (Celestial) graphics IP block strongly suggests these SoCs are indeed derived from Panther Lake, a connection that is supported by the source and kernel patches (via Harukaze at X). The use of Intel's flagship 18A process node and the jump from Raptor Cove to Cougar Cove (rumored) would explain the sharp spike in efficiency.

That's not all, as 3elife secured an alleged roadmap detailing Intel's future product offerings from a third party. Assuming this timeline is accurate, Frisco Lake was never actually intended for launch and appears to be a last-minute addition to Intel's product stack. Apparently, Malibou Lake was in line to be superseded by Grizzly Lake, which is now expected to serve as Intel's third-generation SDV SoC design.

Under the Grizzly Lake lineup, the leaked slides mention an SoC codenamed Monument Peak, reportedly offering up to 32 cores, a 7 TFLOPS-capable Xe-based integrated GPU, slated for the first half of 2027. This time frame coincides with Nova Lake, and one rumored configuration of that architecture includes 32 efficient cores (16P+32E+4LPE), likely based on the Arctic Wolf microarchitecture.

So, if these rumors hold true, Intel is porting its consumer-grade architectures to the automotive industry with a one-year cadence. Considering the extensive validation processes and typically long lifecycles of these chips, automobiles usually don't opt for the most cutting-edge core design, unlike the desktop market. It's hard to say what the future holds, but perhaps Intel's limited success in the mobile phone and AI markets might be a catalyst for this drive to establish a strong foothold in the automotive domain.

Intel has reportedly placed orders with TSMC for its bleeding-edge 2nm-class N2 process technology, according to Economic Daily News. This news comes shortly after AMD officially confirmed its Zen 6 'Venice' server chips, likely the CCDs, will be fabricated using the same node. If the report is accurate, these wafers are likely intended for Intel's Nova Lake lineup of CPUs. While this might put into question 18A's capabilities, Intel officially declared a dual-sourcing strategy for Nova Lake as early as last November.

Nova Lake serves as the successor to Arrow Lake, and is rumored to feature up to 52 hybrid cores (16P+32E+4LPE) segmented into two blocks of eight Coyote Cove P-cores, 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, with four LPE cores likely in a separate SoC Tile. Rumor has it that Nova Lake will transition to a new LGA1954 socket, meaning existing 800-series motherboards won't be compatible.

We are seeing several architectural jumps here as the expected progression is Lion Cove (ARL/LNL), then Cougar Cove, and Coyote Cove for Performance (P) cores. Similarly, Arctic Wolf is suggested to follow Darkmont, which comes after Skymont (ARL/LNL) for Efficiency (E) cores. With 18A already in risk production, the shift to TSMC is probably driven by capacity needs, rather than performance or yield concerns.

Intel 18A should power some of Intel's most ambitious products in recent history: Clearwater Forest and Diamond Rapids (rumored), the former of which has been delayed to H1 2026 citing packaging concerns. To ease pressure on its 18A production line and prevent delays with consumer products, Intel, under interim CEO Michelle Holthaus, announced outsourcing some Nova Lake dies to partners like TSMC and Samsung.

As insinuated by leaker Kepler on X, high-end Nova Lake products will, allegedly, be built using N2 while 18A will be designated for the lower-end parts. This isn't Intel's first time partnering up with TSMC for CPU production, as the company's latest Arrow Lake CPUs (using N3B, N5P, and N6), Lunar Lake (using N3B and N6), and for GPUs Alchemist (using N6), and Battlemage(using N4) have all leveraged TSMC's process technology. This increases Intel's spending, requiring a careful balance between expediting product launches via external foundries or facing delays with its internal manufacturing.

To some extent, even Arrow Lake is dual-sourced with Arrow Lake-U (for low-power devices) using the Intel 3 process. While Arrow Lake had minimal in-house production, ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger reported that Intel will produce most of Nova Lake internally. Relying on TSMC isn't inherently bad if 18A can land a handful of external customers. Analysts have also suggested Nvidia might be eyeing Intel's nodes for its consumer GPUs in the future. Either way, Nova Lake is slated to be a 2026 product, so we're likely looking at the second half with how Intel launches usually proceed.

The GPU rumor mill has been spinning like crazy this morning. The whole thing kicked off when Sparkle's Bilibili account supposedly confirmed the existence of a 24GB variant of the Intel Arc B580 (via ITHome). A media manager also alluded to a potential release window between May and June. But this was short-lived as Sparkle has officially retracted these comments. Perhaps this is a move to manage fallout after a potential NDA breach? It's hard to say for certain, but this isn't the first time we've heard of a 24GB spinoff of Battlemage.

Intel officially introduced its Arc Battlemage GPU lineup in December of last year. From this family, the Intel Arc B570 and Arc B580 were crafted using the mid-range BMG-G21 die, featuring a 192-bit interface for six memory channels. Shipping documents have suggested the existence of alternate BMG-G31 and BMG-G10 variants, likely for the B700 and B300 families, but Intel has not made any official confirmation yet.

This slip-up seemingly corroborates existing rumor, positioning this GPU under Intel's Arc Pro family, succeeding existing Alchemist-based Flex or Pro-series options, for AI applications. From what we can gather, Intel is allegedly deploying the BMG-G21 die, the same as the B580, with 24GB of memory configured using 12x 16Gb modules in clamshell mode. That's a twofold increase in memory capacity over Intel's current Arc Pro A60 offering.

Architecturally speaking, Battlemage is one generation behind Nvidia and AMD. For tasks demanding raw compute muscle, this Arc B580 24GB, or whatever Intel ends up naming it, will probably not land blows against Nvidia's Blackwell PRO or AMD's upcoming Radeon PRO W9000 GPUs. These can, however, compete in AI training and inference, which necessitate a lot of VRAM in cases like Large Language Models (LLMs), and image/video generation models like Stable Diffusion.

The economics don't favor Intel if they were to create a higher-end GPU. At similar die sizes, Intel's PPA (Performance Per Area) and architectural shortcomings become apparent: the B580 at 272mm² (using N5) is priced at $249, while Nvidia sells its RTX 5070, which uses a 263mm² die (using N4P) at $549. While N4P wafers might be pricier than N5 (likely not double), that's still a small consideration.

Either way, Sparkle's seeming confirmation, followed by a swift retraction, suggests there's potentially more beneath the surface. If this GPU does exist, we can expect to hear more from Intel at Computex, where we might also get an early look at Panther Lake, similar to how Lunar Lake was unveiled last year.

Intel is set to detail (PDF) the advantages of its 18A manufacturing technology (1.8nm-class) compared to its Intel 3 fabrication process at the upcoming VLSI Symposium 2025. As expected, the new production node will offer substantial benefits across power, performance, and area (PPA) metrics, thus providing tangible advantages both for client and data center products. 

Intel claims that its 18A fabrication process delivers 25% more performance at the same voltage (1.1V) and complexity, as well as 36% lower power at the same frequency and voltage of 1.1V for a standard Arm core sub-block compared to the same block fabricated on Intel 3 process technology. At a lower voltage (0.75V), Intel 18A provides 18% higher performance and 38% lower power. In addition, 18A consistently achieves 0.72X area scaling compared to Intel 3. 

Intel's 18A manufacturing technology is the company's first node to rely on gate-all-around (GAA) RibbonFET transistors and feature PowerVia backside power delivery network (BSPDN), two features that enable major PPA advantages. 

The standard cell layout comparison highlights the significant physical scaling achieved by Intel 18A over Intel 3 in both High-Performance (HP) and High-Density (HD) libraries. Intel 18A reduces cell heights from 240CH to 180CH in HP libraries and from 210CH to 160CH in HD libraries, which represents a ~25% reduction in vertical dimension. This tighter cell architecture allows for increased transistor density, contributing directly to improved area efficiency. 

The use of PowerVia BSPDN enables more efficient vertical routing by offloading power lines from the front side of ICs, freeing up space for signal routing and further compacting the layout. Additionally, refined gate, source/drain, and contact structures improve overall cell uniformity and integration density. These enhancements collectively enable Intel 18A to deliver better performance-per-area and energy efficiency, supporting more advanced and compact chip designs. 

Intel is reportedly on track to start high-volume manufacturing of compute chiplets for its codenamed Panther Lake processors for client PCs later this year and then chiplets for Clearwater Forest data center systems in early 2026. In addition, the company is on track to tape out the first third-party designs on 18A in mid-2025. 

Apparently, there is interest in developing third-party chips for Intel 18A. In addition to presenting a general paper describing its 18A technology, Intel plans to present a paper describing a PAM-4 transmitter implemented using 18A production node with a BSPDN that is co-authored by engineers from Intel, Alphawave Semi (a contract chip designer and IP provider), Apple, and Nvidia. This does not necessarily mean that Apple or Nvidia will use Intel's 18A for production silicon, but this at least means that they are interested in checking it out. 

Speaking of Apple and Nvidia, TSMC said that virtually all of its partners plan to adopt its N2 (2nm-class) process technology, so it is reasonable to expect this node to be more widely used than Intel's 18A. Nonetheless, for Intel it is crucial to show that it can develop a competitive node and ramp it to high volume, so 18A will play a vital role for the future of Intel's foundry business.

Shipping documents sourced from NBD.ltd purport that Intel might switch to the LGA1954 platform for its next-generation Nova Lake processors on desktop (via Olrak). This is accompanied by PCH tooling likely intended for the 900-series chipsets. Importantly, these listings do not indicate an imminent launch, especially since Nova Lake has officially been confirmed as a 2026 product.

Nova Lake is officially a part of Intel's product family, set to supersede Arrow Lake next year. Preliminary silicon configurations allege two clusters of eight Coyote Cove P-cores and 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, complemented by four Low-Power Efficient (LPE) cores in the SoC Tile, adding up to 52 hybrid cores. Intel's engineers explore numerous design strategies, so whether this ambitious 52-core project will ever see the light of day is unclear.

The information within the manifests implies that Intel is actively distributing LGA1954 testing hardware to its global facilities. Specifically, these are not full-fledged motherboards but appear to be some form of a specialized interposer to test voltage regulation for the upcoming platform. Either way, these kits are designated for "NVL-S", the shorthand for Nova Lake Desktop.