Intel Panther Lake laptop CPU review: call it a comeback

Intel’s been talking the talk for months astir its new procreation of laptop chips, the first made connected its long-anticipated 18A process. 18A is meant to steer Intel backmost toward bluer waters by making its chips better, and, if possible, attracting spot designers for illustration Qualcomm and Nvidia to usage Intel’s foundries, not conscionable its rival TSMC’s. Last year’s Arrow Lake chips received a mixed reception, peculiarly desktop versions. The mobile-only Lunar Lake chips, connected the different hand, were great, showing that the x86 architecture still has plentifulness of conflict successful it against a slow rising tide of Arm-based Windows laptops. But Lunar Lake was a one-off that Intel designed much than manufactured, relying connected TSMC silicon to do the heaviest lifting. Panther Lake puts homegrown Intel wrong erstwhile again.

I’ve been testing the flagship Intel Core Ultra X9 388H Panther Lake spot successful the 2026 Asus Zenbook Duo dual-screen laptop, and it’s been a treat. It’s accelerated capable for intensive activity and multitasking, powerful capable for 1080p gaming astatine precocious settings, and lasts good complete a afloat workday utilizing productivity apps connected artillery power. With Panther Lake, Intel is stepping the walk.

Panther Lake CPUs travel successful 8- and 16-core versions, made up of Cougar Cove capacity cores (P-cores) and Darkmont ratio cores (E-cores). The Core Ultra X9 388H successful the Zenbook Duo is the top-tier 16-core exemplary pinch an Intel Arc B390 GPU (consisting of 12 Xe graphics cores), a guidelines powerfulness of 25W and a maximum turbo powerfulness up to 80W. Intel hyped it arsenic more businesslike than Lunar Lake while simultaneously much powerful than the Arrow Lake chips that are typically recovered successful higher-power workstation and desktop replacement laptops.

Against its closest competition, Panther Lake isn’t an outright winner. Most benchmark scores successful our array beneath are dominated by Apple’s M5 and AMD’s top-tier Strix Halo. But the Intel 388H Panther Lake spot handily thumps AMD’s highest-end Strix Point spot successful each but 1 of the tests we ran. That’s a coagulated leapfrogging by Intel, considering Strix Point handily beat Lunar Lake conscionable a twelvemonth ago. Now, Panther Lake besides trounces our examples of some Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake-H.

While Apple is still the velocity champ successful astir of these categories, I was pleasantly amazed to spot Panther Lake somewhat separator retired the MacBook Pro successful our 4K video export successful Adobe Premiere Pro. That’s those 12 graphics cores astatine work.

In real-world use, Panther Lake’s velocity is palpable. When I fired up my Adobe Lightroom Classic catalog and started editing immoderate of my 50-megapixel RAW files, it felt arsenic speedy — aliases astir arsenic speedy — arsenic a MacBook Pro. I could make heavy-handed changes successful the Develop module, and bounce astir betwixt images, without everything bogging down arsenic it often does connected different Windows laptops. Even taxable discovery and treatment brushwood removal were snappy.

And I did my photograph editing connected artillery power. Unlike astir Windows laptops I’ve utilized up till now, the Zenbook Duo is conscionable astir arsenic accelerated connected artillery powerfulness arsenic it is connected to the wall. This is often thing that Windows laptop makers restrict successful their hardware designs, but I’m relieved it’s not the lawsuit pinch Panther Lake connected the Zenbook Duo. It’s a large triumph for editing and contented creation connected Windows, arsenic it lets the level lucifer 1 of the awesome strengths of modern MacBooks. I conscionable dream each Windows laptop manufacturers travel suit.

Speaking of artillery power, Panther Lake successful the Zenbook Duo is simply a champ. Especially erstwhile you see it’s powering two bright, high-resolution OLED displays. You tin publication deeper specifications connected my real-world acquisition pinch the Zenbook Duo’s artillery life successful my afloat reappraisal of the laptop, but present are a mates speedy hits: It lasted complete 14 hours successful our rundown test, and I could easy past a nine-hour workday of dual-screen multitasking pinch capable juice near complete for immoderate lighter casual usage successful the evening.

As for gaming, Intel claims that Panther Lake’s 12 Xe graphics cores are connected par pinch Nvidia’s discrete RTX 4050 laptop GPU, overmuch for illustration really Strix Halo goes toe-to-toe pinch the RTX 4060. Digital Foundry’s early testing astatine CES recovered Panther Lake to beryllium nipping astatine the heels of a desktop RTX 3050 paper astatine 1080p resolution.

I only did a fistful of scripted gaming benchmarks, because I wanted to walk much clip really playing. But 1 benchmark that stood retired to maine was Cyberpunk 2077, which averaged 40fps astatine 1920 x 1200 solution connected Ultra settings. That’s without ray tracing, but besides without immoderate XeSS (Intel’s type of ace solution upscaling). Panther Lake is nary slouch, moreover if AMD’s beefy Strix Halo spot still has the separator connected graphics.

Once I dove into playing titles for illustration Cyberpunk, Helldivers 2, Battlefield 6, and a fewer others, I discovered that Panther Lake tin typically deed 60fps aliases somewhat beneath astatine 1920 x 1200 solution connected High settings pinch XeSS Balanced enabled. You tin push the graphics value further by turning connected ray tracing aliases flipping XeSS from Balanced to Quality, but I’d only do that if you’re comfortable playing person to 30fps. I for illustration 60fps arsenic my baseline.

Setting crippled graphics to deed a baseline of 40 to 60fps intends you tin flip connected the caller XeSS multi-frame generation, which tin make games look buttery soft astatine good supra 120fps. You tin power multi-frame procreation successful Intel’s app, and prime betwixt 2x, 3x, and 4x framework generation. It felt soft capable to usage successful Battlefield 6 and sewage adjacent to the Zenbook Duo’s autochthonal 144Hz refresh (though I move it disconnected successful multiplayer to guarantee there’s nary chance of accrued input latency). Nvidia whitethorn beryllium marching connected toward 6x Multi Frame Generation pinch DLSS 4.5, but Intel’s doing a good occupation connected its slower cadence — and it’s still up of AMD’s Redstone, which doesn’t support multi-frame gen.

As excited arsenic I americium for Panther Lake to yet arrive, and to instrumentality its landing this well, I’m now looking guardant to further testing of somewhat lower-end versions — ones recovered successful much moderately priced laptops than this $2,300 dual-screen pinch a monolithic battery. (A handheld, perhaps?) And I’m arsenic excited to spot really caller contenders from AMD and Qualcomm stack up, including those cheaper gaming-focused Strix Halo variants. It’s an breathtaking clip for caller laptop releases (rising prices aside, of course).

There’s plentifulness of upcoming competition, but Panther Lake is first retired of the gross and looking for illustration the Windows laptop spot to beat. Welcome backmost to the show, Intel.