Intel Panther Lake laptop CPU leaks: 16C/16T, upgraded GPU, fabbed on Intel 18A and TSMC N3E

Intel still has its next-gen Panther Lake CPUs in its semiconductor ovens right now preparing for a release later this year, with new leaks on the laptop CPU which features upgraded Xe3 "Celestial" GPU cores, and more.

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In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're hearing that Intel's new Panther Lake-H processors launching later this year will feature up to 4 x Cougar Cove P-Cores, 8 x Darkmont E-Cores, and 4 x Darkmont LPE-Cores for a total of 16C/16T.

The Panther Lake-H sports 3 active tiles which are made up of the CPU/SOC die fabbed on Intel 18A with the 4 P-Cores + 8 E-Cores, a separate 4 x LPE Core IP block, 50+ TOPS of NPU for AI workloads, an LPDDR5X memory controller, media controllers, and display output. This is joined by 1 x PCD (Platform Controller Die) fabbed on TSMC N6 with wireless/LAN, PCIe, the Security Engine, and USB controllers. Lastly, there's the integrated GPU die with 12 x Xe3 "Celestial" EUs fabbed on TSMC's N3E process node.

Intel is reportedly not increasing CPU clocks on Panther Lake-H, with MLID noting that "clock speeds are not expected to be notably higher (or higher at all) than Lunar Lake". MLID also notes that like Lunar Lake, the LPE cores inside of PTL (Panther Lake) are "fully usable" for most apps with decent performance compared to LPE inside of Arrow Lake. The leaker adds that this is an important distinction because it means that having 16 total cores makes it closer to Arrow Lake-H than Lunar Lake when it comes to overall core performance.

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Panther Lake-H is expected to match or beat Arrow Lake in multi-threaded performance, probably "get close" in single-threaded performance (even with its possibly lower clock speeds), and offer double-digit improvements in performance all in the same power envelope (15-45W). MLID notes that Panther Lake would be slightly raising CPU performance above Arrow lake, while getting closer to Lunar Lake in terms of power consumption.

What about the upgraded Xe3 "Celestial" GPU and gaming performance? When compared to Lunar Lake, MLID notes that once drivers mature, Panther Lake is expected to offer 15-30% higher integrated GPU gaming performance, all at the same power, while not requiring expensive on-package RAM added to the SoC. This means that Panther lake should "firmly beat" AMD's Strix Point APU when pushed to 45W power, while on the other hand, offer a 50% increase in Xe GPU cores with a node shrink. MLID says his sources told him that "OEMs expected more out of this".

MLID reached out to some of his sources at Intel for some quotes on Panther Lake, here's what he heard:

• I (Intel) moved off the Panther Lake project half a year ago, but with the caveat out of the way -- when I worked on it, it wasn't looking great. Yields were horrible, we had to deal with constantly dying test boards, and everyone was pulling overtime shifts in an attempt to launch it early because leadership knew it can't compete with Zen 6.
• Panther Lake isn't looking like a worst-case scenario anymore, but compared to our (Intel) TSMC products this has bad yields. Nova Lake is turning out much better though!
• (Major OEM) Panther lake seems like another Meteor Lake situation, but maybe with the CPU not going backwards, and the iGPU keeping up with AMD.
• (Major OEM) Despite the issues, I think Panther Lake will be capable of replacing LNL and ARL, but it's not the massive upgrade we wanted.