I’ve reviewed heaps of laptops powered by Intel CPUs during the last yr, and I’ve had gripes. The Core Ultra Series 2 technology was a branding mess with its mixture of Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake, and Meteor Lake architectures. But at CES 2026, Intel turned a nook. Intel Core Ultra Series 3—codenamed Panther Lake—appears to be like prefer it’s truly a coherent platform to go toe-to-toe with AMD and Qualcomm.
Intel appears to have its swagger again, too. Intel had TSMC manufacture its Lunar Lake CPUs final technology, however Intel is now again to manufacturing its personal CPUs once more. This yr, Intel struck a huge deal with Nvidia and the US government became a large shareholder in its operations. Despite latest struggles, the large chipmaker shouldn’t be written off but.
I didn’t have the chance to benchmark any of those new Panther Lake-powered machines at CES, so keep tuned for that after we get our arms on assessment models. But I’m nonetheless impressed—and right here’s why.
Battery life and efficiency in a single
Intel’s Lunar Lake was an odd beast. Made by TSMC as an alternative of Intel, it was Intel’s try to leap on board the power-efficient laptop computer revolution, full with onboard reminiscence that couldn’t be upgraded, a speedy NPU for operating overhyped Copilot+ PC AI options, and a surprisingly capable integrated GPU.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
But Lunar Lake’s huge limitation was multithreaded efficiency. It got here far behind Arrow Lake and even Meteor Lake CPUs in our Cinebench and Handbrake benchmarks. That’s why most laptops I reviewed all year long finally went with Arrow Lake or Meteor Lake chips. Yet, whereas these provided stronger efficiency, they sacrificed battery life and likewise ran hotter than Lunar Lake.
With Panther Lake, Intel says we must always count on greater than 50 % higher multithreaded efficiency over Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake, with 10 % much less energy utilization than Lunar Lake. Intel additionally claims that Panther Lake’s efficiency is much like Arrow Lake.
This time round, it appears like we’re getting each battery life and strong multithreaded CPU efficiency in the identical {hardware} bundle. (Want to dive deeper? Learn extra about Panther Lake’s technical details.)
New built-in GPUs look spectacular
Intel has been arduous at work on upgrading its built-in graphics over the previous few years, and it’s now advertising and marketing its new Arc B390 iGPU as being on par with Nvidia’s RTX 4000-series discrete graphics playing cards. We benchmarked the hardware at CES 2026… and it’s shut!
With Lunar Lake, Intel delivered significantly spectacular built-in Arc graphics—however Lunar Lake wasn’t the place for critical iGPU upgrades. Lunar Lake was centered on battery life and never CPU efficiency, which meant Intel’s best-performing built-in graphics was paired with a CPU platform that struggled in multithreaded efficiency. Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake had even worse iGPUs.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
By bringing Intel’s quickest iGPUs along with an excellent sooner CPU, Panther Lake guarantees to energy laptops with spectacular gaming efficiency on built-in graphics.
That’s one thing a couple of PC producers had been keen to inform me about at CES 2026. Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 3 {hardware} may energy PC gaming experiences and not using a discrete GPU. Companies like HP had been exhibiting off demos of PC video games operating on Intel’s new iGPUs.
Competing with AMD in handhelds
With Panther Lake, Intel is speaking about bringing extra competitors to the gaming handheld house. Steam Deck-style handheld gaming PCs largely use AMD processors, and there’s hypothesis that firms like Valve might launch {hardware} with Arm chips sooner or later.
Intel had a lot swagger that one government even talked smack at CES 2026, accusing AMD of “selling ancient silicon” for handhelds. Intel is promising customized Panther Lake {hardware} for the gaming handheld market—one thing that might be significantly spectacular, contemplating how good Intel’s built-in graphics are getting.
AMD disagreed (naturally), saying Panther Lake would include a bunch of luggage and be a foul match for handhelds. We’ll see who’s proper after the {hardware} is launched. I’m simply excited to see extra competitors.
NPUs that catch as much as Windows 11’s minimal specs
While numerous PC producers are nonetheless keen to speak about Copilot+ PCs and AI laptops, Microsoft looks like it’s moving on from its NPU obsession. Companies like Dell are shifting away from AI laptops, too.
The NPUs Intel has been delivery for the previous few years have been far beneath Microsoft’s minimal specs. After Microsoft introduced again in May 2024 that Copilot+ PCs would require an NPU with no less than 40 TOPS of efficiency, Intel has largely been delivery laptop computer {hardware} with 13 TOPS NPUs—far wanting Microsoft’s minimal goal.
Only Lunar Lake and now Panther Lake cleared the ground for Copilot+ PC options. Meanwhile, all Qualcomm Snapdragon X {hardware} met the minimal, and AMD’s Ryzen AI CPUs delivered strong efficiency on a standard x86 platform with the NPU specs Microsoft requested for.
Matthew Smith / Foundry
It’s been a giant black eye for Intel that the majority Intel CPU-powered laptops nonetheless don’t meet Microsoft’s minimums for these hyped AI options, over 18 months after Microsoft’s announcement.
The excellent news? Most PC consumers don’t care a lot about Copilot+ PC options, and Microsoft now seems to be deemphasizing them. But no less than Intel has lastly caught as much as Microsoft’s minimal specs.
Renewed deal with manufacturing course of
Intel’s option to outsource Lunar Lake manufacturing to TSMC was an enormous shift in its priorities. Up till then, the corporate had all the time manufactured its CPUs in its personal foundries.
Intel even threatened to desert manufacturing going ahead. Back in July 2025, Intel mentioned it will give up on its next-generation 14A manufacturing process if it couldn’t discover a buyer, and a few speculated that Intel may abandon its personal chip fabrication processes.
The US authorities took a stake in Intel a couple of weeks later, and I’ve all the time puzzled if that dire announcement to shareholders was a negotiation transfer. Intel signaled that its US-based manufacturing enterprise was struggling and shortly after landed the federal authorities as a shareholder. Now, Intel’s CEO mentioned at CES 2026 that it’s very excited about investing in its 14A process. It’s an enormous shift from how the corporate was performing simply final summer time.
Panther Lake is the primary product constructed on Intel’s 18A producing course of, and Intel is now not relying on TSMC. Intel can be abandoning a few of the weirder selections of Lunar Lake. For instance, Panther Lake no longer has on-package memory. In a world the place RAM is driving up the price of PCs, that’s helpful.
Will Intel’s “Core Ultra Series 3” be watered down, too?
While Intel is cleaning up its naming a bit, I’m somewhat involved about one factor: does “Core Ultra Series 3” imply something this time round? A yr in the past, “Core Ultra Series 2” meant “Lunar Lake”… till Intel launched a bunch of Arrow Lake and Meteor Lake chips with Core Ultra Series 2 branding, muddying the model.
Now, at CES 2026, everybody appeared to be utilizing “Core Ultra Series 3” as a stand-in for “Panther Lake.” But will Intel as soon as once more launch older architectures with Core Ultra Series 3 branding within the coming yr? Will we get one other spherical of rebranded Meteor Lake chips? Or Lunar Lake chips? If so, “Core Ultra Series 3” may not imply something.
Either method, Intel’s {hardware} platform feels prefer it’s getting the place it must be. The firm is combining efficiency with battery life, delivering critical built-in graphics energy, making its personal CPUs, and now not issuing dire warnings that it could abandon its future manufacturing processes.
I look ahead to reviewing Panther Lake-powered PCs as a result of they sound spectacular. More competitors is all the time good for PC customers.