Intel's Next-Generation Panther Lake Laptop Chips Could Be a Return To Form (arstechnica.com) 23
Intel today announced its Panther Lake laptop processors, consolidating the confusing split between Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake chips that define its current generation. The new processors use a unified architecture across all models instead of mixing different technologies at different price points. Panther Lake comes in three configurations. An 8-core model targets mainstream ultrabooks. A 16-core version adds PCI Express lanes for gaming laptops and workstations with discrete GPUs. A third 16-core variant with 12 Xe3 graphics cores aims at high-end thin-and-light laptops without dedicated graphics cards.
All three chips use the same Cougar Cove P-cores, Darkmont E-cores, and Xe3 GPU architecture. They share an NPU capable of 50 trillion operations per second and identical media encoding capabilities. The main differences are core counts and I/O options rather than fundamental architectural variations. The approach contrasts with Intel's current Core Ultra 200 series. Lunar Lake chips integrated RAM on-package and used the latest Battlemage GPU architecture but were mostly used in high-end thin laptops.
Arrow Lake processors offered more flexibility but paired newer CPU cores with older graphics and an NPU that did not meet Microsoft Copilot+ requirements. Intel claims Panther Lake delivers up to 10% better single-threaded performance than Lunar Lake and up to 50% faster multi-threaded performance than both previous generations. The GPU is roughly 50% quicker. Power consumption drops 10% compared to Lunar Lake and 40% versus Arrow Lake. The chips use Intel's 18A manufacturing process for the compute tile. TSMC fabricates the platform controller tile. Intel said systems with Panther Lake processors should ship by the end of 2025.
All three chips use the same Cougar Cove P-cores, Darkmont E-cores, and Xe3 GPU architecture. They share an NPU capable of 50 trillion operations per second and identical media encoding capabilities. The main differences are core counts and I/O options rather than fundamental architectural variations. The approach contrasts with Intel's current Core Ultra 200 series. Lunar Lake chips integrated RAM on-package and used the latest Battlemage GPU architecture but were mostly used in high-end thin laptops.
Arrow Lake processors offered more flexibility but paired newer CPU cores with older graphics and an NPU that did not meet Microsoft Copilot+ requirements. Intel claims Panther Lake delivers up to 10% better single-threaded performance than Lunar Lake and up to 50% faster multi-threaded performance than both previous generations. The GPU is roughly 50% quicker. Power consumption drops 10% compared to Lunar Lake and 40% versus Arrow Lake. The chips use Intel's 18A manufacturing process for the compute tile. TSMC fabricates the platform controller tile. Intel said systems with Panther Lake processors should ship by the end of 2025.
Or they could be crap (Score:1, Flamebait)
You know, like the stuff Intel has produced fror a long, long time now.
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Skylake was good for its time(other than Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities), but Intel let itself get stuck with no design improvements due to being unable to get from 14nm to 10nm. Performance cores are power hungry, but do have decent performance. The problem is, Intel waters down its chips with all of those e-cores that make machines run like crap.
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If the addition of an e-core makes your machine run like crap, use a better OS.
I made a tool "topline" that nicely visualizes this kind of scheduling. Run it on some terminal, then run various tasks somewhere. Observe the tasks moving between p-cores and e-cores.
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They sure do fluff a cinebench score though, and that is the ONLY reason Intel uses them. I disable them on my 12700K and instantly saw vastly higher 1% lows in gaming and a lower latency OS experience in general. E-cores should be illegal and whoever invented them thrown in jail.
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Disabling e-cores on a 14700F didn't help in the test I ran, but I don't even remember what game it was. I didn't test the cooling either. Where are you seeing better 1% lows?
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Here's a funny marketing one: from the "small is medium, medium is large, large is ultra" department: Qualcomm is now calling the weaker cores "Performance Cores" and the better ones "Prime Cores" https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qualcomm.com%2Fconte... [qualcomm.com] .
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I consider Spectre and Meltdown the start of where their CPUs became really bad. Because, like all other CPU makers, Intel was warned about that risk. While AMD was at least careful (and got worse performance as a result, but a far more difficult to exploit vulnerability), Intel just went for top speed, knowing very well that their customers could pay the price. But that "speed crown" was everything to them.
It is always about how it could be or will be (Score:5, Insightful)
Intel talks about the future all the time, and has been for well over ten years now. Our next product will be so amazing! They even have been saying that two days after a product launch, indicating that they don't even respect the latest products enough to stop talking about how great those future products are. Those who parrot Intel are also in that mode of, "ignore how things are now, because the future will be so much better!". The only reason for doing this is to keep Intel stock prices from going back down to $20-$21 per share, so, pump and dump for Intel stock.
Sure, it's POSSIBLE for Intel to come back, AMD managed to come back from being almost bankrupt, but that was due to Lisa Su being very product focused instead of talking like a CEO, she talks like the president of the company. A good president won't hype things to the moon when times are tough, they will focus on getting the company back on track with better products, which will be better in the long term for the COMPANY. Intel is more focused on the stock price for all of their hype.
So, what's better, being honest while promoting the best characteristics of your current product offerings, or say how great everything is and will be, while clearly ignoring the failings of your products so things CAN actually get better?
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This.
The customers of the CEO are the shareholders. Say anything to undermine the value of their property and they'll sue. Or toss you out.
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Even if their chips do turn out to be actually good, would you trust Intel? Their security has proven to be lacking, and they use a lot of abusive tactics like artificially limiting features and having short lived sockets.
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The last Intel processor I put into one of my machines was a Pentium 200 MMX. So I know all too well not to trust Intel.
"Return to form" (Score:4, Insightful)
I would argue that, for Intel, the phrase "returning to form" does not indicate a move in a positive direction.
Don't expect too much (Score:2)
Parametric yields on 18A are reportedly not great. Expect a top clockspeed of 5.1 GHz with not much in the way of IPC improvement. It will use less power than Arrow Lake per core. The real story will be the Xe3 iGPU which will be significantly better than Intel's past entries. It still won't challenge Strix Halo, but it also won't cost $1500 just for a bare board. Probably.
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It makes it completely pointless because you're getting at best the performance of a RX 2050 in a $1,200 laptop. You could easily find a laptop at the same price point with discrete graphics and a low end integrated graphic solution on die for when you want to save power.
As an example if I want an arc 140v based laptop it's going to set me back at least $1,100 and I can get an
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Most Panther Lake laptops sold for serious work and/or gamers will have an NV mdGPU in them anyway. There may be some miniPCs (which is a slowly growing segment) that rely on the full Xe3 implementation of Panther Lake for graphics. But if I recall correctly, Panther Lake SoCs will have overall better graphics compared to their Arrow Lake-H and Lunar Lake counterparts at the same launch price points, e.g. everyone who actually uses the iGPU will get better graphics with Panther Lake than they did with eit
No they literally could not be (Score:2)
Intel's "Form" that made them famous was having superior process technology and parlaying that into superior performance.
Intel no longer has superior process technology. They have roughly equivalent tech, except that their yields are trash. Or, they use someone else's process technology, in which case it's still not superior.
Intel's Next-Generation Panther Lake Laptop Chips Literally Could Not Be A Return To Form doesn't have quite the same ring to it as the headline you used here, but it wouldn't have been
Re: No they literally could not be (Score:2)
Hahaha I see the Intel investors are still trying to protect their shit investment in clown fucks
How hot? (Score:1)
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Why no PCIE on the low end? (Score:2)
Even my Raspberry Pi has PCIE now. Why would the cripple a general purpose CPU by not giving it a bus that can keep up with it?
Re:Why no PCIE on the low end? (Score:4, Informative)