Intel's next-gen Panther Lake CPUs launching at CES 2026, available in Q1 2026

Intel will be launching its next-generation Panther Lake "Core Ultra Series 3" processors at CES 2026, available inside of new laptops in Q1 2026.

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The new Panther Lake CPUs will feature new technologies including new P-Cores, E-Cores, Xe3 GPU cores, and NPU/IPU. Intel is combining all of this technology into a multi-tile solution that will not just be for laptops, but new AI PCs, and other products.

One of the more exciting things about Panther Lake is that the CPU tile is being fabbed in-house on Intel's new 18A process node, while the Xe3 GPU will be fabbed at TSMC on its N3E process node.

• Read more: Intel Core Ultra Series 3 'Panther Lake' CPU final clocks: flagship SKU tops out at 5.1GHz

Intel hosted the media at its recent Tech Tour 2025 event where it teased its new Panther Lake CPUs, but didn't provide concrete details on the new processors. However, in a few months' time at CES 2026, we'll get the full skinny on Panther Lake including performance and more, as well as Intel partners showing off their new Panther Lake-powered laptops, Mini-PCs, and more.

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Intel says it will begin ramping high-volume production later this year, and that the first Panther Lake SKU will be ready to ship before the end of 2025. As the production ramp continues, the first "full-on availability" for Panther Lake CPUs will kick off in January 2026, with more platforms shipping in Q1 2026.

During the Intel Tech Tour 2025 event, the company was asked whether we'll see Panther Lake laptops paired with discrete (higher-end) GPUs, to which the company said it doesn't expect to see Panther Lake CPUs paired with discrete GPUs. But, we have already seen Lunar Lake CPUs paired with discrete GPUs, so it could happen given more time... just not in Q1 2026.

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On the GPU side of things, Panther Lake ships with Intel's next-gen Xe3 GPU with 12 cores that reportedly offer up to 50% more performance over the previous Lunar Lake generation. We'll have to wait and see just how good the performance is from Xe3, as AMD has been nailing it with its new RDNA 3.5-powered "Strix Halo" APU that offers damn good gaming performance out of an APU.

Intel says that Panther Lake has massive battery life improvements that are provided through compute adjustments in the P/E-core configuration, more specifically, which core type handles which workload. Intel says that with the hybrid architecture, which started with Lakefield, refined with Alder Lake, Meteor Lake, and current-gen Lunar Lake, has reached a point where Intel looks "really" confident with Panther Lake.

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Intel Panther Lake "Core Ultra Series 3" CPU features:

• Lunar Lake-level power efficiency and Arrow Lake-class performance.
• Up to 16 new performance-cores (P-cores) and efficient-cores (E-cores) delivering more than 50% faster CPU performance vs. the previous generation.
• New Intel Arc GPU with up to 12 Xe cores delivering more than 50% faster graphics performance vs. the previous generation.
• Balanced XPU design for next-level AI acceleration with up to 180 Platform TOPS (trillions of operations per second).