Intel displayed its next-gen Panther Lake CPU silicon and showcased various demos on various platforms at Computex as they prepare for a full-fledged launch in 2026.
Intel Provides Live Demo of Next-Gen 18A-Powered Panther Lake CPUs, Early Silicon Specs & Launch Scheduled For Early 2026
Intel has been providing updates on its Panther Lake CPUs for a while. It will be the lead client product based on the 18A process technology and feature various upgrades over Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake. As we have said before, Panther Lake combines the best of Lunar Lake (Power Efficiency) and the best of Arrow Lake (High-Performance Core Design) on the same silicon.
In addition to offering new CPU core technologies, the Panther Lake CPUs also integrate faster GPU and NPU capabilities with Xe3 “Celestial”. Finally, consumers can expect broader scalability with consumer, gaming and commercial products packing LP5 & DDR5 support.
Intel’s Panther Lake CPUs are on track for production in the second half of 2025, with a consumer-ready launch with OEMs starting in early 2026.
At Computex, Intel displayed the actual Panther Lake silicon, which features a total of five tiles. The Compute Tile takes up the majority of the space and features Cougar Cove P-Cores and Darkmont E-Cores. The Panther Lake “Core Ultra 300” family is going to include three SKUs which will be derived into various products. Then there’s the GPU, SOC and IO Tile along with the smaller filler tile.
The Blue Team also showcased various laptops running Panther Lake CPUs. Both the laptops and the CPUs featured within these laptops are early engineering samples and were used for certain demos. Compared to Lunar Lake, Panther Lake’s AI performance is much faster, and that much is something that we can expect since ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger stated that the new chips would offer 2x the AI uplift.
An RVP and a development kit, similar to the ones we saw for Lunar Lake last year, were also on display.
The RVP featured an array of LPDDR5x memory chips and a copper heatsink. The CPU was actively cooled.
We also got a sneak peek at some of the specs that we can expect from Intel’s Panther Lake CPUs. The CPU featured 16 cores and 16 threads, which confirms that SMT support is not available on Panther Lake, just like the existing offerings. We don’t know the exact core configuration or the P/E/LPE core arrangement, but it should be a higher-end SKU. The base speed is listed at 2.0 GHz, and we saw the chip running around 3 GHz. Do keep in mind that this is still very early silicon, and we can expect final clocks in the 5 GHz+ range. As for the cache, the CPU was equipped with 1.6 MB L1, 24 MB L2, and 18 MB L3.
That’s about it as far as Panther Lake information goes from Computex, but there are plenty more updates planned throughout the year. At the next Tech Tour, Intel is expected to provide further details regarding Panther Lake CPUs, so exciting times are ahead for all of those looking forward to Intel’s next big client CPU update.
Intel Panther Lake CPU Configurations (Source: @Jaykihn)
| Die SKU | P-Cores (Cougar Cove) | E-Cores (Darkmont) | LP-E Cores (Skymont?) | Xe3 GPU Cores (Celestial) | PL1 TDP | PL2 TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panther Lake-H | 4 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 25W | 45W |
| Panther Lake-H | 4 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 25W | 45W |
| 4 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 25W | 45W | |
| Panther Lake-U | 4 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 15W | 28-30W? |
