- Intel has finally announced its Panther Lake processor, and its Compute tile is manufactured on Intel's 18A process node.
- There are 8/16 CPU cores with Cougar Cove, Darkmont, and LP E-cores, along with Xe3 GPU.
- Intel says Panther Lake is 10% more efficient than Lunar Lake, despite the lack of on-board memory.
Intel has finally announced its Panther Lake processors (marketed as Intel Core Ultra Series 3), which will power Windows laptops and handhelds in 2026. This is a pivotal processor for Intel as its Compute tile is manufactured on Intel’s 18A process node. Success of Panther Lake will decide Intel’s manufacturing leadership in the industry.
Intel Panther Lake (Core Ultra Series 3) Processor Announced
Coming to the Panther Lake processor, there will be three different configurations: 8 CPU cores + 4 Xe3 GPU cores, 16 CPU cores + 4 Xe3 GPU cores, and 16 CPU cores + 12 Xe3 GPU cores. The CPU consists of Cougar Cove P-cores, Darkmont E-cores, and LP E-cores. The 8-core CPU will have 4 P-cores and 4 LP E-cores. And the 16-core CPU will feature 4 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores.
Intel says the new Panther Lake processor combines the efficiency of Lunar Lake with the high performance of Arrow Lake-H. Notably, Intel claims Panther Lake delivers 10% better single-threaded performance than Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake-H at the same power level. And in multi-threaded tasks, Panther Lake promises more than 50% performance at similar power.
The Xe3 GPU also delivers 50% better performance than Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors. Despite removing on-board memory from the chip package, Intel says Panther Lake consumes 10% lower power than Lunar Lake, which should result in better battery life than prior Intel processors.
Do note that while the Compute tile is manufactured on Intel’s 18A process node, the 12 Xe3-core GPU tile and controller tiles are manufactured on TSMC’s 3nm (N3E) node. The 4-core Xe3 GPU tile is manufactured on Intel 3 process node.
As for the NPU, Intel has packed NPU 5 which can deliver up to 50 TOPS (trillion operations per second). It’s more efficient than the NPU 4 on Lunar Lake. And finally, you get Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 with Panther Lake processors.
