It’s confirmed: Intel is set to reveal its Core Ultra 300 Series CPUs at CES 2026. This also confirms the naming convention of the blue chipmaker’s first offering of its next generation Panther Lake architecture.
The task of launching and speaking about the Core Ultra 300 Series will fall on Jim Johnson, Senior VP and GM of Intel’s Client Computing Group, on 5 January at 3PM PST. As it typically goes during the annual exhibition, the brand will also be hosting several sessions that, in this case, will be focused around AI.
Intel officially announced Panther Lake back in October this year. The new chipset is built around the chipmaker’s 18A process. Specs-wise, Panther Lake is made up of Cougar Cove P-Cores and Darkmont E-Cores, the latter also applicable for its LP E-Cores.
Further, the new chipset also features Intel’s new Xe3 graphics architecture, featuring up to 16MB of L2 cache, 12 ray tracing units, and up to 120 TOPS of AI performance, if need be. On a related note, the chipmaker also announced that its XeSS3 upscaler will be getting multiframe generation of up to 4x, making it similar to NVIDIA’s own DLSS technology.
The Core Ultra 300 Series platform will be the first lineup to ship out using the 18A process, with the desktop lineup, codename Nova Lake, will launch next year as well, albeit a little later.
Earlier reports also suggest that Intel has beefed up the integrated graphics on the Core Ultra 300 Series, likely in response to the success that its rival, AMD, has and is enjoying through its Ryzen Z Series APUs. Supposedly, the iGPU of the Panther Lake scored 6300 points, versus the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme’s 3,620 points. That’s approximately 72% ahead of the APU, and one that was built specifically for gaming handhelds.
(Source: Intel)
