- At Computex 2025 in Taiwan, Intel demonstrated its next-gen Panther Lake processor, which is built on the 18A process node.
- The Panther Lake CPU is said to bring Cougar Cove, Darkmont, and possibly Skymont cores. It's likely to include Xe3 GPU.
- Laptops based on the Panther Lake platform will be released in early 2026.
At the ongoing Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan, Intel showcased its next-generation Panther Lake processor. Successor to Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, the new Panther Lake processors (Intel Core Ultra 300 series) are expected to hit the PC market in early 2026. Most notably, the Panther Lake processor is fabricated on Intel’s crucial 18A process node.
According to Wccftech, the Panther Lake chipset will have power efficiency similar to the Lunar Lake processor. Essentially, Intel has combined the performant capability of Arrow Lake H-series processor and power efficiency of Lunar Lake to develop the Panther Lake chipset.
Intel demonstrated a Panther Lake system with 16 CPU cores, featuring 4P cores, 8E cores, and 4LP cores. Reports suggest that these are Cougar Cove, Darkmont, and possibly Skymont cores. On the graphics side, Intel is expected to include a GPU based on the next-gen Xe3 (“Celestial”) architecture.
In the test system, the CPU base clock speed is set to 2.0GHz and can go up to 3.0GHz. Note that these are evaluation systems, and the frequency will be scaled higher in retail units. Overall, with the Panther Lake demonstration at Computex, Intel is showcasing that its 18A node is healthy and ready for production.
It will be exciting to see how the x86-based Panther Lake compares to the Arm-based Snapdragon X2 Elite, of which the 3rd-gen Oryon CPU is expected to bring huge improvements in performance and efficiency.
