Intel has confirmed that it will officially unveil its next-generation Core Ultra 300 “Panther Lake” processors for notebooks on January 5th at CES 2026. The company will unveil this mobile platform, manufactured using the 18A process, at a special event led by Jim Johnson, senior vice president and general manager of the Intel Client Computing Group.
Core Ultra 300 to be unveiled soon
The Panther Lake series is the first processor family to be produced using Intel’s in-house 18A process. The next-generation platform features updated P-Core and E-Core architectures, completely revamped Xe3 “Celestial” integrated graphics, a 5th-generation NPU for AI workloads, and numerous hardware innovations focused on power efficiency.
Intel claims to offer over 50 percent performance improvements over the previous generation on the CPU side. On the graphics side, the new Intel Arc GPU offers options for up to 12 Xe cores, promising over 50 percent graphics performance increases. The XPU design, which integrates AI accelerators, will deliver AI processing capacity up to 180 TOPS across the platform.
With the series, Intel is transitioning to a new naming structure for its high-end models. The high-end Panther Lake models, grouped under the “Core Ultra X” brand, will feature the most powerful graphics units in the lineup. The top-tier models, the Core Ultra X9 388H, Core Ultra 7 X368H, and Core Ultra 7 X358H, come with 12 Xe3 GPU cores. Mid-range models have 10 Xe3 cores, while lower-end models have 4 Xe3 cores.
Early Geekbench test results reveal that Intel’s new platform promises significant performance leaps, particularly on the integrated GPU side. When combined with the company’s own performance graphics, Panther Lake is expected to outperform Qualcomm Adreno X2 graphics and the iGPUs in AMD’s RDNA 3.5-based Gorgon Point APUs.
The first laptops based on Panther Lake were seen in the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro and Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. More models and compact systems are expected to be announced as the launch date approaches.
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