Intel demos Panther Lake chips, promises Arrow Lake performance with Lunar Lake efficiency

[DragonSlayer101]

The big picture: Intel unveiled its next-generation Core Ultra 300 "Panther Lake" laptop processors on the opening day of Computex 2025. Built on the company's 18A process node, the chips use a five-tile design that includes Cougar Cove performance cores, Darkmont and Skymont efficient cores, and an Xe3 Celestial integrated GPU.

Intel did not share performance benchmarks for the new chips but claimed they will deliver Arrow Lake-level performance with Lunar Lake-level efficiency. The company also confirmed that the processors will include next-gen XMX integrated graphics matching the performance of Lunar Lake's GPU.

The exhibition included a Panther Lake laptop running DaVinci Resolve, showcasing on-device AI video processing. The laptop processor had 16 cores, though Intel withheld detailed specifications. Online speculation suggests a configuration of four performance cores, eight efficient cores, and four low-power efficient cores.

The demo CPU featured a 2.0GHz base clock, 3.0GHz boost clock, 1.6MB of L1 cache, 24MB of L2 cache, and 18MB of L3 cache. Both the laptop and processor were engineering samples, with retail units expected to enter production in the second half of 2025 ahead of an early 2026 OEM launch.

Another showcase at the event featured Microsoft's new AI-powered Clippy assistant, highlighting Panther Lake's AI processing capabilities. In the presentation, an Intel representative used Clippy to generate game code in Python. However, Intel did not provide benchmark data to illustrate the chip's performance.

The Panther Lake chips at the event ran on Reference Validation Platforms – Intel's term for custom boards used to validate new processor microarchitectures. The company also displayed a development kit similar to the one shown alongside Lunar Lake last year.

Previous leaks suggested that Panther Lake would include at least four SKUs. The flagship model features four P-cores, eight E-cores, four LP-E cores, and 12 Xe3 integrated GPU cores. It has a 45W PL1 rating and an 80W PL2 ceiling. The entry-level chip keeps four performance and four low-power efficiency cores but drops the standard efficiency cores, with a 15W PL1 and 54W PL2 rating.

Image source: Tom's Hardware, PC World

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Intel demos Panther Lake chips, promises Arrow Lake performance with Lunar Lake efficiency

 

[letsgoiowa]

Only matching the performance of previous generations? AMD keeps pulling further and further ahead. It reminds me of when this situation was reversed in the early 2010's.

 

[yRaz]

Only matching the performance of previous generations? AMD keeps pulling further and further ahead. It reminds me of when this situation was reversed in the early 2010's.

Idk, im pretty happy where performance is at right now, im more interested in better battery life and efficiency. It'd also be nice if costs came down a bit. The high end stuff, as cool as it is, is very hard to justify against used server hardware. Ive got 11 systems in my homelab and I paid pennies on the dollar for them compared to new hardware.

 

[Puiu]

Idk, im pretty happy where performance is at right now, im more interested in better battery life and efficiency. It'd also be nice if costs came down a bit. The high end stuff, as cool as it is, is very hard to justify against used server hardware. Ive got 11 systems in my homelab and I paid pennies on the dollar for them compared to new hardware.

More performance is never a bad thing as long as power draw is kept in check.

 

[GhostLegion]

Idk, im pretty happy where performance is at right now, im more interested in better battery life and efficiency. It'd also be nice if costs came down a bit. The high end stuff, as cool as it is, is very hard to justify against used server hardware. Ive got 11 systems in my homelab and I paid pennies on the dollar for them compared to new hardware.

Same man, not on the number of systems but performance especially on desktop is pretty ok right now. The power consumption of modern systems and the heat they put out is out of control. Honestly, mini pc’s are pretty interesting and heat output is critical. Imagine throwing a 14900K or whatever and having it only consume 75-100W at most for what we would say is peak performance today. Same for performance on battery. Everyone no matter what can appreciate more battery. Not everyone needs more performance.

 

[passwordistaco]

Imagine throwing a 14900K or whatever and having it only consume 75-100W at most for what we would say is peak performance today.

I just built that system recently, with a 9800X3D.

 

[SRB]

Same man, not on the number of systems but performance especially on desktop is pretty ok right now. The power consumption of modern systems and the heat they put out is out of control. Honestly, mini pc’s are pretty interesting and heat output is critical. Imagine throwing a 14900K or whatever and having it only consume 75-100W at most for what we would say is peak performance today. Same for performance on battery. Everyone no matter what can appreciate more battery. Not everyone needs more performance.

The only problem with that was to get the 14900k to run with the 7800X3D, you had to throw 5-600 watts at it. Arrow Lake has lower power draw, but it also came with lower performance. Intel is managing expectation pretty low.

 

[Adnan77]

After running a homelab on old hardware, power efficiency has become my top priority—mainly to keep electric bills low. It's good to see Intel improving, but I hope both Intel and AMD step up further. Apple’s M-series still leads in efficiency, and its integrated GPU outperforms most Intel and AMD options (running LLM). We really need strong, efficient CPUs with capable built-in GPUs—healthy competition is what drives real innovation and gives us better choices.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Everyone no matter what can appreciate more battery. Not everyone needs more performance.

Everyone with a desktop doesn't care about battery.

 

[Vauban]

Everyone with a desktop doesn't care about battery.

True. +Our whole company (almost 1000 employees) runs solely on laptops and nobody cares about battery, its either docked in the office, at home or it just survives even 3 hours long meetings. I think its a very tiny minority of customers who actually care whether it lasts 5 hours or 5,5 hours...

 

[Cracken]

Everyone with a desktop doesn't care about battery.

I can assure you there are customers who care about energy efficiency, some EU countries have energy cost that are 6-7 times higher than in the U.S etc.

Both CPU and GPU power efficiency weighs in highly in reviews here, users outright not willing to buy products that are not power efficient compared to rivals. Intel CPU's are included here.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I can assure you there are customers who care about energy efficiency, some EU countries have energy cost that are 6-7 times higher than in the U.S etc.

Both CPU and GPU power efficiency weighs in highly in reviews here, users outright not willing to buy products that are not power efficient compared to rivals. Intel CPU's are included here.

Of course some people care about efficiency. I was responding to a comment that said "Everyone cares about battery".

But even at 7X energy costs EU countries created for themselves with their own policies (everything has tradeoffs even if the politicians hope you don't notice), the average consumer isn't using their PC at full power long enough to amount a significant monetary savings.

A far better reason to prefer efficiency is less heat in your gaming area and quieter fans. Both of those are benefits every time you game regardless of if it saved you 3 cents or 21 cents.

 

[letsgoiowa]

Idk, im pretty happy where performance is at right now, im more interested in better battery life and efficiency. It'd also be nice if costs came down a bit. The high end stuff, as cool as it is, is very hard to justify against used server hardware. Ive got 11 systems in my homelab and I paid pennies on the dollar for them compared to new hardware.

Well yeah, that's what AMD excels at right now. The 9800X3D is basically the undisputed GOAT and it uses hardly any power.

 

[yRaz]

Well yeah, that's what AMD excels at right now. The 9800X3D is basically the undisputed GOAT and it uses hardly any power.

and it's nearly pointless for anyone to buy it because it really only matters if you can spend $2000+ on a GPU, but you see people pairing 60 class cards with it. I'd take a 9700X over a 9800X3D anyday and spend the money I saved on a better GPU. Also, the X3D chips are only good at one thing, gaming. So unless you're bottleneck is your CPU, and it isn't unless you have a 4090 or 5090, you're a fool for buying one.

And I'd honestly take the 9950X over the 9800X3D as I do lots of virtualization. The CPU is only the bottleneck for the top ~3% of gamers because nVidia decided that gaming is for rich people.

But, seriously, I were to build a PC with a 9070XT tomorrow, I'd put in a non-x3d chip

 

[GhostLegion]

Everyone with a desktop doesn't care about battery.

You ought to care about heat/power usage. Frequently mini pcs use mobile processors but stuffing a 14900k in the same power envelope as a mobile processor would be amazing. Do you really think anyone needs more performance than that right now? More cores at greater clock speeds? People complain about software not being able to take advantage of hardware now, throwing more hardware grunt at the problem is just enabling poor optimizations imo.

 

[GhostLegion]

True. +Our whole company (almost 1000 employees) runs solely on laptops and nobody cares about battery, its either docked in the office, at home or it just survives even 3 hours long meetings. I think its a very tiny minority of customers who actually care whether it lasts 5 hours or 5,5 hours...

Right, because when everyone talks about the phenomenal battery life of MacBooks they do it with a yawn

 

[ScottSoapbox]

You ought to care about heat/power usage. Frequently mini pcs use mobile processors but stuffing a 14900k in the same power envelope as a mobile processor would be amazing. Do you really think anyone needs more performance than that right now? More cores at greater clock speeds? People complain about software not being able to take advantage of hardware now, throwing more hardware grunt at the problem is just enabling poor optimizations imo.

Yes, I need more performance than that. The faster the CPU the quicker my work is done and I can get back to doing fun things.

 

[TommyBoyFL]

Windows scheduler struggles with 2 types of cores(performance and efficiency), Intel wants to have 3 flavors now?

 

[GoldenGoat]

Well yeah, that's what AMD excels at right now. The 9800X3D is basically the undisputed GOAT and it uses hardly any power.

9800X3D is the gaming GOAT, but it uses plenty of power. It’s not really appropriate to put it up against this new laptop chip, however.