Intel Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake Announced: up to 16 Cores, Xe3 Graphics, and up to 180 TOPS for AI

Intel has revealed the specifications of its upcoming Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake processor series, which will officially debut at CES 2026. The new generation of mobile chips is built on Intel’s 18A process technology and combines new Cougar Cove cores (P-cores), energy-efficient Darkmont cores (E-cores), and updated Xe3 graphics in a modular architecture with Foveros-S packaging.

Panther Lake Architecture

The Core Ultra 300 platform consists of three main tile:

• Compute module — based on the Intel 18A process;
• Graphics module — based on Intel 3 or TSMC N3E;
• Controller tile — based on TSMC N6.

All components are integrated via Foveros-S, enabling the creation of compact, power-efficient systems-on-chip (SoCs) where the CPU, GPU, and I/O controllers operate as a single unit.

Intel claims that Panther Lake combines the power efficiency of Lunar Lake with the performance of Arrow Lake. The processors will feature up to 16 cores (P, E, and LP-E) and deliver up to 50% faster CPU performance than the previous generation. Intel Arc Xe3 graphics will offer up to 12 cores and a similar boost in rendering speed.

P and E Cores

The Cougar Cove P-cores are based on the improved Lion Cove architecture. They feature an enhanced branch prediction system and larger caches—3 MB L2 and 256 KB L1 per core, as well as a small, low-latency L0 data cache.

The Darkmont E-cores are an accelerated version of Skymont. They support 9-way instruction decoding, a larger out-of-order window (416 entries), and 26 dispatch ports, significantly increasing efficiency. Each cluster of four E-cores has 4 MB of shared L2 cache.

The architecture also includes a 4-core LP-E (Low Power Efficiency) unit, based on the Darkmont architecture and designed for background tasks without utilizing the primary cores. This reduces power consumption and extends laptop battery life.

Performance and Power Efficiency

Next-generation optimizations provide:

• +10% performance per core with the same power consumption;
• +50% in multi-threaded mode;
• –40% power consumption while maintaining performance.

DDR5-7200 and LPDDR5X-9600 memory are supported, and the shared L3 cache reaches 18 MB with an additional 8 MB on the controller side to reduce latency.

Configurations and Interfaces

The Panther Lake series will be available in three variants:

1. 8 cores (4P + 4 LP-E)
2. 16 cores (4P + 8E + 4 LP-E)
3. 16 cores + 12 Xe3 graphics cores — the flagship version

The processors support up to 20 PCIe lanes, Thunderbolt 4 (and optional Thunderbolt 5), Wi-Fi 7 Revision 2 (Whale Peak 2 BE211), and Bluetooth 6.0 with LE Audio and Auracast support.

Xe3 Graphics and AI Capabilities

The Xe3 graphics architecture will be available with 4 or 12 Xe cores. Improved cache, filtering, shadow rendering performance, and ray tracing are also included.
XeSS 3 technology with Multi-Frame Generation will be available, creating additional intermediate frames for smoother graphics, as well as Frame Generation Override, allowing the user to manually select the frame generation mode.

The new NPU5 neural processing unit delivers up to 50 TOPS with support for FP8 and INT8 formats, doubling the speed of MAC operations and reducing power consumption by 40%. The combined power of the CPU, GPU, and NPU reaches 180 TOPS, enough to run complex AI tasks locally, without cloud services.

Power Consumption and Optimization

The updated Thread Director redistributes the load between cores, directing more GPU resources during games, resulting in up to a 10% FPS boost.
The Intelligent Experience Optimizer automatically adjusts Windows power modes, increasing power efficiency by up to 20%.

Mass production of Panther Lake will begin before the end of 2025, and the first laptops based on this platform will be released in early 2026.