The Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processor chip series has been much talked about last year, and today, Intel has finally launched the processor chip series for various types of laptops that will be launched this year.
This processor chip series is specifically for laptop-class devices, from thin and light designs, gaming and productivity. This time, Intel will not differentiate the processor chip series like the previous series, Lunar Lake for thin and light laptops and Arrow Lake-H for other laptops.
For this processor chip series, Intel has introduced up to 14 processor chip SKUs consisting of the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H which comes with 16 physical cores to the Intel Core Ultra 5 322 which has 6 physical cores.
Another new introduction is Intel's latest graphics processing chip, namely the Intel Arc B390 and Intel Arc Pro B390 which come with 12 Intel Xe3 graphics cores, which is an update to the Intel Battlemage graphics architecture introduced last year. As a difference, the Lunar Lake chip series comes with eight Intel Xe2 cores.
You will also notice that the processor chip model that uses the Intel Arc B390 graphics chip is only the model with the Intel Core Ultra X nameplate.
Another most noticeable difference is that the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processor chip series no longer comes with built-in DDR5 memory chips like what was shown on the Intel Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake processor chip series to give device builders more space to install the amount of memory they deem appropriate, and also because the price tag of memory chips has been skyrocketing lately.
But, another interesting thing is that depending on the CPU model used, it supports both types of LPDDR5 and LPDDR5X memory. However, for Intel Core Ultra X models such as the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H and Intel Core Ultra X7 368H, it will only support LPDDR5X memory which needs to be soldered to the motherboard.
As usual, Intel says that their Panther Lake series of processor chips comes with much greater capabilities than their previous Intel Lunar Lake and Intel Arrow Lake-H offerings.
In terms of processing power, the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H shows a 60 percent performance increase compared to the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V and 10 percent more powerful than the Intel Core Ultra 9 288H.
In terms of graphics processing power, the Intel Arc B390 shows a 77 percent performance increase when compared to the Intel Arc 140V used in the Intel Lunar Lake series of processor chips when tested with 45 popular computer games.
In fact, Intel also says that the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H processor chip with the Intel Arc B390 graphics processor chip comes with the same performance as a laptop using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card with much lower power consumption.
Speaking of battery life, Intel says that the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H chip can stream Netflix content for 16.5 hours and it will come with battery performance comparable to Intel Lunar Lake processors. For the latest CPU model, they will also come with Endurance Gaming Mode which will try to extend battery life during gaming sessions.
Depending on productivity needs, Intel processing chips come with adjustable power boost features. Basically, all Intel Panther Lake processing chips can be driven at a rate of 25W, but can be increased to 45W, 65W and 80W if desired.
In comparison, Intel Arrow Lake-H processing chips can use as much as 160W of electrical power depending on the configuration used. Intel Panther Lake chips are seen to come with Intel Arrow Lake-H performance at the power consumption rate of Intel Lunar Lake.
In terms of technology support, all Intel Panther Lake processors come with 20 PCIe Gen5 connection lanes, but for models that will use the Intel Arc B390 graphics chip, it will use eight of those lanes. Support for WiFi7 R2, Bluetooth Core 6 technology is also present on all these processors.
In the meantime, all these processors will also support up to four Thunderbolt 4 plugs on a single laptop, with some of them also showing support for Thunderbolt 5.
At the CES 2026 event, several brands such as Acer, Dell and HP will show off their latest laptop offerings with this Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processor series.
