Intel's new flagship Core Ultra X9 388H 'Panther Lake' CPU performance hits Geekbench 6

Intel's new flagship Core Ultra X9 388H "Panther Lake" CPU has hit Geekbench 6, where we get some early leaked performance numbers out of the flagship Panther Lake processor.

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The new Intel Core Ultra X9 388H processor scores 3057 points in the single-core test of Geekbench 6, and 17,687 points in the multi-core tests. This is a great score when compared against the current-generation flagship Core Ultra 9 285H "Lunar Lake" processor, and it can easily battle AMD's flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" APU.

AMD's powerful Strix Halo APU has a TDP range of between 45W and 120W, with a default 55W TDP, while the Core Ultra X9 388H has a default TDP of 45W (with an unknown TDP range for now, more details @ CES 2026), but the 285H it will succeed has a 45W to 115W TDP range.

Intel's new Core Ultra X9 388H processor beats out the 285H by 21% in the multi-core Geekbench 6 test, but this is just Geekbench... it's not 3DMark, and it's definitely not gaming, so wait until CES 2026 before we get some more "real" numbers. Even then, that's Intel marketing fluff... real-world testing from benchmarkers and users/gamers will be what we want to see.

The new X9 388H "Panther Lake" CPU uses a new hybrid core layout, with 4 performance cores, 8 efficiency cores, and 4 low-power efficiency cores for a total of 16 cores. The X9 388H chip can boost @ up to 5.1GHz, but I'm very keen to see the integrated GPU performance from the Arc B390 inside, which is reportedly up to 50% faster than the Arc 140V, where we should expect RTX 3050 Laptop GPU performance.

Intel will be unleashing its next-gen Core Ultra 300 series "Panther Lake" CPUs at CES 2026, and we'll be on the show floor delivering all of the information and just purely geeking out in real-time.