Intel to only detail Panther Lake architecture on October 9, specs and reviews after CES 2026

Intel will only be detailing its next-gen Panther Lake CPU architecture at its big October 9 reveal event, with no detailed specifications being released, and we won't see reviews until after CES 2026 in over three months' time.

That's right... we won't be seeing anything really juicy about Panther Lake until 2026, according to Chinese leaker "Golden Pig Upgrade" who said that the release of Panther Lake on October 9 is "only related to the architecture analysis, the detailed specifications and reviews will have to wait until after CES next year. Good things come to those who wait, so wait patiently, 18A".

18A is in reference to Intel's new 18A process node built in-house at its semiconductor fab, compared to its previous generation CPUs being fabbed in Taiwan at TSMC. The embargo lift on October 9 will see tech media, YouTubers, and influencers discuss the Panther Lake CPU architecture. This means we'll get the nitty-gritty on the new Cougar Cove Performance and Darkmont Efficiency cores, as well as some details for its next-gen Xe3 "Celestial" GPU for the first time, as Xe3 debuts in Panther Lake.

• Read more: Intel's next-gen Panther Lake CPUs to be unveiled on October 9, as media attends Tech Tour 2025

Panther Lake is something actually exciting from Intel even though it's "just" a laptop CPU -- Nova Lake comes to the desktop in 2026 on a new LGA 1954 socket -- but Intel says Panther Lake is the next step of its hybrid design. The company has improved the P-cores, used faster E-cores, a low-power island for background and media tasks, as well as tighter power management.

Intel says that the end goal with Panther Lake is to have users' everyday work running on the low-power island, avoid waking up the main compute fabric, and be far more energy efficient.

Intel adds that Thread Director and OS scheduling have been tuned once again for Panther Lake, with the company building on the "zones" model that Microsoft uses to keep work running on mostly Efficient cores until heavier workloads require the work to move to Performance cores.

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

Intel's upcoming Panther Lake CPUs will hit laptops in 2026, offering up to 16 cores and 16 threads with upgraded Cougar Cove P-Cores and Darkmont E-Cores. It'll feature next-gen Xe3 "Celestial" graphics, that offers 15-30% more gaming performance, an upgraded NPU, and a 15-45W power limit.

Intel CPU + SOC die = fabbed on Intel 18A, but Xe3 GPU and PCD fabbed on TSMC N3E: This is where things get interesting, Intel is getting its CPU/SOC die fabbed on its new Intel 18A process node, but the Xe3 GPU chip is being fabbed by TSMC and its newer N3E process node, while TSMC also handles the PCD (Platform Controller Die) on its N6 node.