Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs might be great but they're not selling, Raptor Lake laptops are instead

When it comes to AI PCs, Intel hoped Lunar Lake (and Meteor Lake) laptops would do well, but apparently it's Raptor Lake portables that rule the roost.

Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs might be great but they're not selling, Raptor Lake laptops are instead
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TL;DR: Intel has admitted that its latest Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake laptop processors have not made the impact that the company hoped for. Instead, notebooks with Raptor Lake silicon inside are being favored by consumers, to the point where production shortages are now being felt.

Intel has admitted that its latest processors are not what laptop buyers want, but rather Team Blue's older mobile CPUs are currently more popular - to the point where Raptor Lake silicon is running short of inventory.

Laptops with past-gen CPUs are being bought by most consumers, with Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake silicon underperforming (Image Credit: Pixabay)
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Laptops with past-gen CPUs are being bought by most consumers, with Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake silicon underperforming (Image Credit: Pixabay)

Tom's Hardware grabbed the scoop on this from an Intel earnings call, which revealed that the turbulent times at the company extend to include problems with new chips for AI PCs - Copilot+ laptops - not selling as well as the company hoped they would.

There's less demand for Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake laptops, as consumers are buying older notebooks with previous-gen CPUs inside. This is happening to the point that Intel's running short of production wherewithal when it comes to older Intel 7 chips - the 7nm Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors.

Michelle Johnston Holthaus, CEO of Intel Products, explained:

"What we're really seeing is much greater demand from our customers for n-1 and n-2 products so that they can continue to deliver system price points that consumers are really demanding."

The n-1 and n-2 terminology refers to last-gen chips, and the generation before that, which laptop makers are keen to purchase based on what consumer demand is driving.

Copilot+ PCs, with their AI shininess - a limited amount of polish though it may be, at least so far - don't appear to be doing the trick, at least not for Intel. (Microsoft is singing a rather different tune about its Arm-based Snapdragon models, notably).

This shortage of Raptor Lake chips is apparently set to 'persist for the foreseeable future,' and given that Holthaus talks about economic headwinds and tariffs being partly to blame - a situation that seems unlikely to change in the short-term - this seems a fair bet.

Holthaus also confirmed that Panther Lake remains on track, with these next-gen chips for laptops expected to enter production later this year, ahead of a (presumably early) 2026 release.