Intel Panther Lake to "set new standard" for gaming performance, due to new GPUs

Future gaming laptops featuring Intel CPUs are about to get a graphics boost that will "set a new standard" for the industry, according to an Intel engineer. Intel Panther Lake gaming CPUs, built using the company's new 18A semiconductor manufacturing process, feature powerful new Xe3 GPUs that include support for multi frame generation, a feature previously only available to Nvidia GPU owners.

This new Intel lineup could, if the performance matches the hype, seriously rival AMD chips, not to mention Nvidia's own RTX lineup. More powerful integrated GPUs could improve gaming performance on lower-powered laptop models, with the potential to join our best gaming laptop guide in the future.

Before Intel released its technical details about Panther Lake, company fellow Tom Petersen shared his faith in the new lineup via a video posted on the company's YouTube channel. Petersen explains that Intel is "accelerating" the adoption of AI technologies into its products, and "integrating these capabilities deeper into its upcoming products."

Petersen goes on to say that Panther Lake, in particular, will change "not only… Intel, but the industry as a whole." Since that video was published, Intel has released technical details about the new chip lineup. According to Intel, Panther Lake will feature four Xe3 core variants and 12 Xe3-core variants, sharing the same architecture but with otherwise different specs.

The four Xe3 core variant will feature 32 XMX engines, a 4MB L2 cache, and four ray tracing units, while the 12 Xe3 core variant will feature 96 XMX engines, a 16MB L2 cache, and 12 ray tracing units. The Xe3 variants also match up to what we've seen in a recent Intel Panther Lake leak, where 10 and 12 GPU cores were hinted at.

Intel reckons that the end result is 50% better performance for Xe3 over Intel Lunar Lake's Xe2 GPUs with the same power. It also, according to Intel, leads to 40% better performance per watt than Arrow Lake-H processors. Panther Lake also reintroduces E-cores, which were removed from Lunar Lake CPUs, to improve multi-threaded performance by up to 50%.

Along with the technical improvements, Intel has introduced multi-frame generation with its new XeSS-MFG software, a feature that was spotted in a recent Intel driver leak. As with multi-frame generation with Nvidia DLSS 4, available to RTX 50-series GPUs, XeSS-MFG adds three AI-generated frames between each real frame generated by the GPU. Intel is also planning to add XeSS-MFG support to its older lineup, with Intel Core Ultra 200 CPUs with Xe2 cores and Arc A- and B-series GPUs gaining support, with Xe1 GPUs gaining support later.

Tom Petersen's comments certainly reflect confidence by the company, despite recent rumors that Intel Panther Lake manufacturing has been beset by quality control problems. Intel also hasn't had a truly successful launch in some time, with AMD able to surge with the success of its 3D V-cache capable chips.

If Intel Panther Lake can deliver strong enough GPU performance from integrated GPUs alone, lesser-powered laptops that lack a discrete GPU may become unnecessary. That would be good for gamers on a budget, but the proof will be in the pudding, and we'll be keen to see how these new Xe3 GPUs perform in future gaming laptops.

We won't have to wait too long to find that out, however. Intel has already confirmed that it will launch these new CPUs at CES 2026 in January, where full specs, as well as its own performance benchmarks, will become available.

If you're ready to upgrade and don't fancy the wait, our best handheld guide has our top selections for portable rigs. Our best gaming PC guide has a good selection of pre-built machines you can choose between instead if you'd prefer something more powerful.

Don't forget to join our community Discord server to start chatting about this and other PC gaming hardware stories with like-minded readers and staff.