Intel Panther Lake pre-release testing delivers over 80 fps in Cyberpunk, 100 fps in F1 — Arc B390 offers playable 1080p frame rates with XeSS quirks in our hands-on tests
Intel has finally pulled back the curtain on Panther Lake, and in addition to a major process milestone with 18A, Intel is packing in the largest integrated GPU it has ever shipped in a handful of new X-series SKUs. These SKUs, including the Core Ultra X9 388H that Tom’s Hardware was able to test ahead of release at CES 2026, include 12 cores on Intel’s latest Xe3 graphics architecture and boast performance that can rival a discrete RTX 4050, at least according to Intel’s claims.
Testing the graphics performance in-person, Panther Lake is undoubtedly impressive, not only because of its raw capabilities, but also its clear efficiency. We aren’t able to publish power numbers today, but subjectively, Panther Lake delivered easily the coolest gaming experience I’ve seen out of a laptop, barely even getting warm during an hour and a half of heavy-duty benchmarks in a Lenovo reference design.
The silicon quality and process advancements are obvious, and Intel’s claims aren’t full of hot air. Panther Lake reaches that entry-level segment that Intel is targeting with its X-series parts, and does so with remarkable efficiency. The asterisk is software. Even in the benchmarking session, software issues crept up with a handful of popular titles Intel had pre-installed on the machines, which will only become more pronounced when extended to a larger sample of titles.
We’ll have full test results for Panther Lake once systems arrive on January 27 globally, including firm power and temperature numbers, along with productivity results. For now, we’re looking at some quick and dirty tests in games, along with the experience of using Panther Lake in the flesh.
Intel set us up with a reference system made by Lenovo. You can see the system information above. This is an IdeaPad Pro 5 running the top-end Core Ultra X9 388H chip from Panther Lake, along with 32GB of memory. For testing, the system was perched on a stand for better airflow, and the games were running off of an external PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD connected via USB-C.
The native resolution for the display is 2880 x 1800, but I ran tests at either 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200 depending on support in-game, along with XeSS upscaling (settings for each will be noted in the benchmarks below). This is in-line with the benchmark data Intel itself has shared on Panther Lake. Keep in mind, however, that upscaling works better with higher output resolutions. You’ll see a performance drop climbing up to native resolution, but with upscaling, the drop isn’t as severe as you’d expect.
Although we can’t publish power results, Intel confirmed that the Core Ultra X9 388H has a maximum turbo power of 65W (PL1) with a short-term limit of 85W (PL2). That’s power for the entire SoC, not just the integrated graphics. The performance results here for the SKUs sporting 12 Xe3 cores; the vast majority of the Panther Lake lineup only includes 4 Xe3 cores, with only the X-series SKUs getting the full 12.
Testing the graphics performance in-person, Panther Lake is undoubtedly impressive, not only because of its raw capabilities, but also its clear efficiency. We aren’t able to publish power numbers today, but subjectively, Panther Lake delivered easily the coolest gaming experience I’ve seen out of a laptop, barely even getting warm during an hour and a half of heavy-duty benchmarks in a Lenovo reference design.
The silicon quality and process advancements are obvious, and Intel’s claims aren’t full of hot air. Panther Lake reaches that entry-level segment that Intel is targeting with its X-series parts, and does so with remarkable efficiency. The asterisk is software. Even in the benchmarking session, software issues crept up with a handful of popular titles Intel had pre-installed on the machines, which will only become more pronounced when extended to a larger sample of titles.
We’ll have full test results for Panther Lake once systems arrive on January 27 globally, including firm power and temperature numbers, along with productivity results. For now, we’re looking at some quick and dirty tests in games, along with the experience of using Panther Lake in the flesh.
Intel set us up with a reference system made by Lenovo. You can see the system information above. This is an IdeaPad Pro 5 running the top-end Core Ultra X9 388H chip from Panther Lake, along with 32GB of memory. For testing, the system was perched on a stand for better airflow, and the games were running off of an external PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD connected via USB-C.
The native resolution for the display is 2880 x 1800, but I ran tests at either 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200 depending on support in-game, along with XeSS upscaling (settings for each will be noted in the benchmarks below). This is in-line with the benchmark data Intel itself has shared on Panther Lake. Keep in mind, however, that upscaling works better with higher output resolutions. You’ll see a performance drop climbing up to native resolution, but with upscaling, the drop isn’t as severe as you’d expect.
Although we can’t publish power results, Intel confirmed that the Core Ultra X9 388H has a maximum turbo power of 65W (PL1) with a short-term limit of 85W (PL2). That’s power for the entire SoC, not just the integrated graphics. The performance results here for the SKUs sporting 12 Xe3 cores; the vast majority of the Panther Lake lineup only includes 4 Xe3 cores, with only the X-series SKUs getting the full 12.