Intel has launched the Intel Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake CPUs at CES 2026, which are looking to be an excellent improvement over the previous generations in iGPU performance and efficiency, and performance too. It looks to be the most power-efficient x86 CPU till AMD launches Zen 6 with better Power efficiency. Let’s look at what’s new in Panther Lake.
Performance
Intel claims that the Panther Lake CPUs can deliver 60% more performance than their previous generation of thin and light CPUs, Lunar Lake, at the same power point, which is just excellent and faster than the 285H at a similar power level.
The cores have also been upgraded, so the new, upgraded E-cores are more performant than Raptor Lake P-cores while using less power to achieve that. Additionally, the P-cores, specifically the Cougar Coves, have received a performance boost, which is excellent. Intel also claims that it’s the most performant thin and light in terms of productivity performance, which is excellent. When given 25W, the performance remains leading ahead of the competition.
Graphics
The highest-end Arc B390 features 12 Xe cores with 16 MB of L2 cache and is based on Xe3 architecture, and it features 12 ray tracing units with 96 XMX engines. And there’s also a B370, which comes with 10 Xe cores and 10 ray tracing units with 80 XMX engines.
The graphics performance on the CPU is the best, and Intel claims that the graphics are 77% faster than the 288V with 2x upscaling enabled, which is the previous generation. Intel claims that it’s 76% faster than the fastest Intel iGPU 140T with 2x upscaling enabled, which is pretty good. It’s 73% faster than the HX 370 with 2x upscaling enabled, and without native rendering, it’s 82% faster than the HX 370, which is pretty good, and 2.6x faster than the Qualcomm X Elite 84-100 on native rendering and has similar performance to the RTX 4050 60W with 2x upscaling enabled.
The Xe3 Graphics also supports XESS3 with multi-frame generation, which gives 3 frames instead of 1 frame generated, and they show smoothness metrics with frame rates, animation error and percentiles for all metrics.
In Cyberpunk 2077, in super resolution and frame gen, the Intel GPU provides 2x better frame rates (85 vs. 48 on FG and 48 vs. 19 on super resolution) and supports MFG in Battlefield 6. It’s also faster than the HX 370 in super resolution (29 vs. 57) and FG (49 vs. 91 fps), which is good, and it’s also faster than the 4050 in Cyberpunk super resolution (37 vs. 48) and FG (45 vs. 85) and in Battlefield 6 too (69 vs. 91 in FG and 42 vs. 57 in super resolution).
NPU and AI
The Panther Lake features up to 50 NPU TOPS, and Intel claims that LLM performance is 4.3x faster than the HX 370 from AMD, and the total platform TOPS is up to 180 TOPS, and it can support up to 96 GB of LPDDR5X and 2x faster LLM on NPU vs. Core Ultra 285H.
They also claim that X9 388h on OpenVINO and Windows ML will provide consistent and fast LLM, beating all of the competition, which includes the HX 370 and 84-100 and 288v and 285H, which seems okay, though, since they have upgraded the NPU.
The AI creation tools run best on Intel Core Ultra Series 3, according to Intel, providing a performance boost of 2.5x on GPT OSS 20B on Ollama, a 1.1x improvement in After Effects, and 2x on Edgerunner AI, which is kind of great.
The X9 388h can beat the Jetson AGX Orin equipped with 64 GB, too, with it getting 1.7x higher performance in image classification, 1.9x faster in LLM latency and 2.3x more perf/watt per dollar in video analytics and up to 4.5x higher throughput in vision language action models.
The X9 388H can beat the 285h too in object detection by up to 9.6x higher performance, in image classification up to 6.8x faster, and in time to first token tested on LLM models, it’s 3.8x faster, which is great too.
The X9 388H can beat the Ryzen AI HX 370 and AI Max+ 395 in object detection with 4.8x higher performance and in image classification with 8.3x higher performance than the competition, which also seems excellent.
Battery, Efficiency
Speaking about the efficiency of the CPU in Cinebench 2024 Single Thread, the 388H can provide the same level of performance as the 285H while using up to 40% less power to achieve this feat, and in Cinebench 2024 Multi Thread, it can deliver up to 60% more performance than the 288V at a similar power level, and vs. the 285H, it can do 10% more performance at a similar power level.
Intel claims that it has the most power-efficient platform with intelligent display technology with real-time AI upscaling to deliver lower-power vivid visuals with dynamic HDR and low-light correction done on a low-power IPU with low-power Intel Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0, and it comes with context-aware charging for the longest possible battery life, both long-term and short-term.
Intel has reduced power up to 2.8x compared to the Core 150U, which is a significant SoC power reduction in three years, and still, they are continuing to slash x86 power, reducing up to 57% lower SoC power vs. the Core Ultra 200H series and 78% lower SoC power than the AMD AI 365.
Intel claims that the X9 388H has a 99.9 Wh battery and a 2.8k OLED display, providing 27 hours of Netflix, 17 hours of UL Pyrocron, and 9 hours in Microsoft Teams 3×3 with Windows Studio effects. The X7 368h has a 68 Whr battery and 2.8k OLED, enabling the best battery life with 16.5 hours of Netflix and 7.5 hours of Microsoft Teams 3×3 with Windows Studio effects. The AMD HX 375 with a 74 Wh battery and 2.8k OLED provides 12.6 hours of Netflix and 7.3 hours on Microsoft Teams. The Qualcomm 78-100 X Elite provides 17.7 hours of Netflix streaming and 6.9 hours of Microsoft Teams, with a 59 Wh battery and 2.2k IPS display.
SKU and Availability
The ones ending with an 8H have Intel Arc or Arc Pro B series graphics, while the others have Intel graphics equipped with 4 Xe cores. The 8H variants support only LPDDR5X RAM, while the others support both LPDDR5X and DDR5, which is excellent.
The Intel Core Ultra Series 3 will be available in over 200 designs, which is quite impressive. Intel will begin accepting preorders on January 6th, and it will start shipping in January.
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