Panther Lake or PTL is the Core Ultra Series 3 mobile processor line developed by Intel. The architecture was launched in January 2026 at CES 2026. It succeeds and extends Lunar Lake and is designed as a scalable mobile platform spanning a wider range of power and performance targets, from thin-and-light laptops to higher-performance mobile systems. The Core Ultra X9 378H CPU was launched separately, without a formal announcement, in April 2026.

Architecture Panther Lake combines a heterogeneous CPU core tile manufactured on Intel's in-house 18A process with an integrated graphics tile based on the Arc Xe3 architecture, which is derived from the earlier Xe2 (Battlemage) design, and an I/O tile manufactured on TSMC's N6 process.

The clusters vary in size: The big 4+8+4 core tile is used in the H series, and the small 4+4 core tile is used in the low-power processors. Non-Arc H series CPUs also are the only processors in this lineup to utilize the larger I/O tile, while Arc H series and low-power CPUs use the smaller core tile. Said tiles both support DDR5 and LPDDR5X memory, however, the larger tile has more PCIe lanes. Arc H series CPUs use a binned variant of the smaller I/O tile that doesn't support DDR5. There are also smaller GPU tiles which have up to 4 Xe cores, and larger GPU tiles which have up to 12 Xe tiles. The latter being branded and labeled as Arc B390/B370 if the machine using it reaches memory speeds of at least LPDDR5X-7467, otherwise they will be labeled as just Intel Graphics. Some models with the larger GPU tile continue to rely on TSMC manufacturing for the GPU on its N3E process, possibly due to budget concerns.

Rather than introducing a fundamentally new CPU or GPU architecture, Panther Lake focuses on higher core counts, better graphics configurations, and increased power budgets enabled by a newer manufacturing node and modular tile-based design.

Furthermore, instead of developing a more capable NPU, Intel has opted for an optimized, smaller and more efficient NPU that delivers about the same performance as the previous generation's NPU.

List of Panther Lake processors Panther Lake CPUs omit hyper-threading support.

Mobile

Panther Lake High Power +Core Ultra Series 3 X99X9 X77 X77 5Model388H386H378H368H366H358H356H338H336HCores4844Base clock rate(GHz)2.12.01.91.61.5Turbo Boost(GHz)5.14.95.04.84.74.63.83.73.83.63.53.43.73.53.63.43.33.2GraphicsNameArc B390IntelArc B390IntelArc B390IntelArc B370IntelXe cores124124124104MaxTurbo(GHz)2.52.452.42.3NPU (int8 TOPS)5047Intel vPro colspan="2" colspan="2" colspan="2" colspan="2" Smart Cache18 MBTDPMin15 WBase25 WTurbo80 W65 W

Panther Lake +Core Ultra Series 3 7 5Model365355335332325322Cores42424Base clock rate(GHz)2.42.32.22.52.12.51.81.71.61.91.61.9Turbo Boost(GHz)4.84.74.64.44.54.43.63.53.43.33.43.3GraphicsNameIntel GraphicsXe cores4242MaxTurbo(GHz)2.52.452.32.452.3NPU (int8 TOPS)4947464746Intel vPro colspan="2" colspan="2" Smart Cache12 MBTDPMin12 WBase25 WTurbo55 W

Wildcat Lake In April 2026, Intel launched Wildcat Lake, a variant of Panther Lake intended for value laptops, commercial systems and edge devices. This series features a simpler design, lower performance, and lower power consumption. The Ultra moniker has been dropped and they are simply called the "Intel Core Series 3".

List of Wildcat Lake processors

RAM support: up to 64 GB of RAM in single channel mode (either LPDDR5X-7467 or DDR5-6400) Socket: FCBGA1516 PCI Express revision: 4.0, 6 lanes Image Processing Unit: removed

+Core Series 3 7 53Model360350330320315305304Cores214Base clock rate(GHz)1.51.4Turbo Boost(GHz)4.84.64.44.33.63.43.3GraphicsNameIntel GraphicsXe cores21MaxTurbo(GHz)2.62.52.3NPU (int8 TOPS)1716 15 15Smart Cache6 MBTDPMin10 WBase15 WTurbo35 WPrice (USD)$426$469$309$340$340$309$309

Arc G3 The Arc G3 series, released May 28, 2026, is a scaled-down variant of the Core Ultra 3 series, designed for handhelds and other portable gaming devices with lower power consumption.

List of Arc G-series processors +ModelG3 ExtremeG3Cores284Base clock rate(GHz)1.91.5Turbo Boost(GHz)4.74.63.43.33.1GraphicsNameArc B390Arc B370Xe cores1210MaxTurbo(GHz)2.32.2NPU (int8 TOPS)46Smart Cache12 MBTDPMin15 WBase25 WTurbo80 WConfigurable8–35 W8–30 W

Starfire Intel Starfire, announced in July 2026, is a variant of Panther Lake designed for use in spacecraft and orbital systems, supporting operational temperatures from -55°C to 125°C and offering a guaranteed 10-year lifetime. There are two SKUs with TDP of 10 and 35W.

List of Starfire processors

Reception Panther Lake High Power Panther Lake has been widely praised for its power-efficiency and integrated graphics performance, having been noted as a "return to form" for Intel.

Arc G3 Reviews for the Intel Arc G3 and G3 Extreme processors have been extremely positive regarding graphics performance, with reviewers calling it the fastest and a highly capable silicon for gaming handhelds to date. However, the initial devices were heavily criticized for their high price point.https://hothardware.com/reviews/msi-claw-8-ex-ai-reviewhttps://www.pcmag.com/news/intel-arc-g3-extreme-tested-fastest-pc-gaming-handheld-chip

See also List of Intel CPU microarchitectures List of Intel Core processors

References