Intel just hosted their CES keynote where they formally launched Panther Lake as the Core Ultra Series 3 SoCs.
Much of the Panther Lake details were previously shared back at their Tech Tour in Arizona: Intel Showcased Panther Lake & Xe3 Graphics At Tech Tour Arizona 2025. For CES 2026 I wasn’t briefed in advance by Intel but here are my quick notes from their keynote. Still awaiting Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake hardware at Phoronix as well for Linux compatibility testing and performance benchmarking, so nothing to share on that front today.
Intel talked up Panther Lake as the “x86 Battery Life King” with up to 27 hours of battery life for Netflix streaming and up to 17 hours for office productivity.
Intel Arc B390 graphics is the highest-tier integrated graphics to be found with Panther Lake. Intel Arc B390 is the 12 Xe core model. Intel is claiming 73% better performance on average with Arc B390 graphics over AMD Strix Point… At least under Windows.
The flagship Panther Lake SKU is the Core Ultra X9 388H with 16 cores between 4 P cores, 8 E cores, and 4 LPE cores. The Core Ultra X9 388H has a 5.1GHz maximum P-core frequency, 18MB Smart Cache, and the Arc B390 graphics. The Core Ultra X9 388H has a 25 Watt base power rating and 65~80 Watt turbo power rating.
Other new Intel Panther Lake SKUs include the Core Ultra 7 366H, Core Ultra 7 365, Core Ultra X7 358H, Core Ultra 7 356H, and Core Ultra 7 355. Further down the stack are the Core Ultra 5 338H, Core Ultra 5 336H, Core Ultra 5 335, Core Ultra 5 325, Core Ultra 5 332, and Core Ultra 5 322 models.
Intel also confirmed they will be launching a handheld gaming platform based on Panther Lake later this year.
As I have been writing about for months, Intel has been working on the Panther Lake Linux support for many months now. With the latest upstream Linux kernel and other components like Mesa, at least as an outside observer it appears much of the Panther Lake Linux support is in good shape. But we’ll see once we end up finding our hands on Panther Lake for confirming not only the Linux compatibility/support but very interesting as well will be the actual Linux performance across a variety of workloads for both the new CPU cores as well as the Intel Xe3 integrated graphics. (So far Intel hasn’t reached out about any reference laptops for Linux testing, so looks like I’ll be stuck buying a laptop for those interested in Panther Lake Linux data.)
The first Intel Panther Lake laptops are supposed to be available for order beginning tomorrow and more designs coming to market as the year progresses. Still awaiting more details from Intel ODM partners on getting an idea for Panther Lake laptop pricing.
Those wishing to (re)watch the CES 2026 keynote can find it streamed at Intel.com.
