Intel doesn’t suck anymore. It’s redemption time

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I’ve reviewed a number of laptops powered by Intel CPUs during the last 12 months, and I’ve had gripes. The Core Extremely Collection 2 era was a branding mess with its mixture of Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake, and Meteor Lake architectures. However at CES 2026, Intel turned a nook. Intel Core Extremely Collection 3—codenamed Panther Lake—appears to be like prefer it’s truly a coherent platform to go toe-to-toe with AMD and Qualcomm.

Intel appears to have its swagger again, too. Intel had TSMC manufacture its Lunar Lake CPUs final era, however Intel is now again to manufacturing its personal CPUs once more. This 12 months, Intel struck an enormous take care of Nvidia and the US authorities grew to become a big shareholder in its operations. Regardless of latest struggles, the massive chipmaker shouldn’t be written off but.

I didn’t have the chance to benchmark any of those new Panther Lake-powered machines at CES, so keep tuned for that when we get our fingers on evaluate models. However I’m nonetheless impressed—and right here’s why.

Battery life and efficiency in a single

Intel’s Lunar Lake was an odd beast. Made by TSMC as a substitute of Intel, it was Intel’s try to leap on board the power-efficient laptop computer revolution, full with onboard reminiscence that couldn’t be upgraded, a speedy NPU for working overhyped Copilot+ PC AI options, and a surprisingly succesful built-in GPU.

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However Lunar Lake’s massive limitation was multithreaded efficiency. It got here far behind Arrow Lake and even Meteor Lake CPUs in our Cinebench and Handbrake benchmarks. That’s why most laptops I reviewed all year long finally went with Arrow Lake or Meteor Lake chips. But, whereas these provided stronger efficiency, they sacrificed battery life and in addition ran hotter than Lunar Lake.

With Panther Lake, Intel says we must always count on greater than 50 p.c higher multithreaded efficiency over Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake, with 10 p.c much less energy utilization than Lunar Lake. Intel additionally claims that Panther Lake’s efficiency is just like Arrow Lake.

This time round, it feels like we’re getting each battery life and strong multithreaded CPU efficiency in the identical {hardware} bundle. (Wish to dive deeper? Be taught extra about Panther Lake’s technical particulars.)

New built-in GPUs look spectacular

Intel has been arduous at work on upgrading its built-in graphics over the previous few years, and it’s now advertising its new Arc B390 iGPU as being on par with Nvidia’s RTX 4000-series discrete graphics playing cards. We benchmarked the {hardware} at CES 2026… and it’s shut!

With Lunar Lake, Intel delivered critically spectacular built-in Arc graphics—however Lunar Lake wasn’t the place for severe iGPU upgrades. Lunar Lake was targeted on battery life and never CPU efficiency, which meant Intel’s best-performing built-in graphics was paired with a CPU platform that struggled in multithreaded efficiency. Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake had even worse iGPUs.

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By bringing Intel’s quickest iGPUs along with a fair sooner CPU, Panther Lake guarantees to energy laptops with spectacular gaming efficiency on built-in graphics.

That’s one thing a couple of PC producers have been keen to inform me about at CES 2026. Intel’s new Core Extremely Collection 3 {hardware} might energy PC gaming experiences with out a discrete GPU. Corporations like HP have been displaying off demos of PC video games working on Intel’s new iGPUs.

Competing with AMD in handhelds

With Panther Lake, Intel is speaking about bringing extra competitors to the gaming handheld area. Steam Deck-style handheld gaming PCs largely use AMD processors, and there’s hypothesis that firms like Valve might launch {hardware} with Arm chips sooner or later.

Intel had a lot swagger that one government even talked smack at CES 2026, accusing AMD of “promoting historical silicon” for handhelds. Intel is promising customized Panther Lake {hardware} for the gaming handheld market—one thing that might be critically spectacular, contemplating how good Intel’s built-in graphics are getting.

AMD disagreed (naturally), saying Panther Lake would include a bunch of luggage and be a nasty match for handhelds. We’ll see who’s proper after the {hardware} is launched. I’m simply excited to see extra competitors.

NPUs that catch as much as Home windows 11’s minimal specs

Whereas a number of PC producers are nonetheless keen to speak about Copilot+ PCs and AI laptops, Microsoft appears to be like prefer it’s transferring on from its NPU obsession. Corporations like Dell are shifting away from AI laptops, too.

The NPUs Intel has been transport for the previous few years have been far beneath Microsoft’s minimal specs. After Microsoft introduced again in Could 2024 that Copilot+ PCs would require an NPU with no less than 40 TOPS of efficiency, Intel has principally been transport laptop computer {hardware} with 13 TOPS NPUs—far wanting Microsoft’s minimal goal.

Solely Lunar Lake and now Panther Lake cleared the ground for Copilot+ PC options. In the meantime, all Qualcomm Snapdragon X {hardware} met the minimal, and AMD’s Ryzen AI CPUs delivered strong efficiency on a standard x86 platform with the NPU specs Microsoft requested for.

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It’s been an enormous black eye for Intel that the majority Intel CPU-powered laptops nonetheless don’t meet Microsoft’s minimums for these hyped AI options, over 18 months after Microsoft’s announcement.

The excellent news? Most PC patrons don’t care a lot about Copilot+ PC options, and Microsoft now seems to be deemphasizing them. However no less than Intel has lastly caught as much as Microsoft’s minimal specs.

Renewed give attention to manufacturing course of

Intel’s option to outsource Lunar Lake manufacturing to TSMC was an enormous shift in its priorities. Up till then, the corporate had at all times manufactured its CPUs in its personal foundries.

Intel even threatened to desert manufacturing going ahead. Again in July 2025, Intel mentioned it might surrender on its next-generation 14A manufacturing course of if it couldn’t discover a buyer, and a few speculated that Intel might abandon its personal chip fabrication processes.

The US authorities took a stake in Intel a couple of weeks later, and I’ve at all times questioned if that dire announcement to shareholders was a negotiation transfer. Intel signaled that its US-based manufacturing enterprise was struggling and shortly after landed the federal authorities as a shareholder. Now, Intel’s CEO mentioned at CES 2026 that it’s very enthusiastic about investing in its 14A course of. It’s an enormous shift from how the corporate was performing simply final summer season.

Panther Lake is the primary product constructed on Intel’s 18A manufacturing course of, and Intel is not relying on TSMC. Intel can be abandoning among the weirder choices of Lunar Lake. For instance, Panther Lake not has on-package reminiscence. In a world the place RAM is driving up the worth of PCs, that’s precious.

Will Intel’s “Core Extremely Collection 3” be watered down, too?

Whereas Intel is cleansing up its naming a bit, I’m a bit of involved about one factor: does “Core Extremely Collection 3” imply something this time round? A 12 months in the past, “Core Extremely Collection 2” meant “Lunar Lake”… till Intel launched a bunch of Arrow Lake and Meteor Lake chips with Core Extremely Collection 2 branding, muddying the model.

Now, at CES 2026, everybody gave the impression to be utilizing “Core Extremely Collection 3” as a stand-in for “Panther Lake.” However will Intel as soon as once more launch older architectures with Core Extremely Collection 3 branding within the coming 12 months? Will we get one other spherical of rebranded Meteor Lake chips? Or Lunar Lake chips? In that case, “Core Extremely Collection 3” won't imply something.

Both means, Intel’s {hardware} platform feels prefer it’s getting the place it must be. The corporate is combining efficiency with battery life, delivering severe built-in graphics energy, making its personal CPUs, and not issuing dire warnings that it might abandon its future manufacturing processes.