Jan 26, 2026
3 min read
The Intel Core Ultra X9 388H Panther Lake notebook processor, the first in the new 18A process, has been floating around for months.We tested it in the new Asus Zenbook Duo.
Intel has been talking up its new generation of laptop chips for months, the first ones made on its anticipated 18A process.18A is intended to lead Intel back into bluer waters by improving its chips and, if possible, luring chip designers like Qualcomm and Nvidia to use Intel foundries, not just rival TSMC.Last year's Arrow Lake chips received a mixed reception, especially the desktop versions.The mobile-only Lunar Lake chips, on the other hand, were great, showing that the x86 architecture still has a lot of fight against a slowly growing tide of Arm-based Windows laptops.But Lunar Lake was a one-off job that Intel designed rather than manufactured, relying on TSMC silicon to do the heavy lifting.Panther Lake reintroduces local Intel inside.
Intel Panther Lake laptop CPU review: call back
The first 18A process chip from Intel is fast, even on battery.And it's a solid option for 1080p gaming.
I tested the flagship Intel Core Ultra X9 388H Panther Lake on my 2026 Asus Zenbook Duo dual-screen laptop and it's great.It's fast enough for intense work and multitasking, powerful enough for 1080p gaming at high settings, and lasts a full workday using battery-powered productivity apps.With Panther Lake, Intel is riding high.
Panther Lake processors are available in 8- and 16-core versions, consisting of Cougar Cove performance cores (P-cores) and Darkmont efficiency cores (E-cores).The Core Ultra X9 388H in the Zenbook Duo is a flagship 16-core model with an Intel Arc B390 GPU (consisting of 12 Xe graphics cores), a base power of 25W and a maximum turbo power of up to 80W.Intel is positioning itself to be more efficient than Lunar Lake while also being more powerful than the Arrow Lake chips typically found in higher-end workstations and desktop-replacement laptops.
Against its closest competition, Panther Lake is not a winner.Most of the benchmarks in our table below are powered by Apple's M5 and AMD's top-tier Strix Halo.But the Intel 388H Panther Lake chip beats AMD's top-tier Strix Point chip in all but one of the tests we tried.This is a solid jump for Intel, as Strix Point beat Lunar Lake a year ago.Now Panther Lake also outperforms our Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake-H models.
While Apple is still the speed champion in most of these categories, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Panther Lake easily surpass the MacBook Pro in 4K video export in Adobe Premiere Pro.That's 12 graphics cores at work.
Intel Core Ultra X9 388H (Panther Lake) / Asus Zenbook Duo / 32GB / 1TB |Apple M5 / MacBook Pro 14 / 16GB / 1TB |AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (Strix Point) / Asus Zenbook S16 / 32GB / 1TB AISDPlus (RX389) |/ Asus ROG Flow Z13 / 32GB / 1TB |Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (Hồ Mặt Trăng) / Acer Swift 14 AI / 32GB / 1TB |Intel Core Ultra 7 255H (Hồ mũi tên GB / Lenovo 1 TB Book |)
|CPU Cores |16 |10 |12 |16 |8 |16 |
|Graphics core |12 |10 |16 |40 |8 |8 |
|Geekbench 6 CPU Single |3009 |4208 |2828 |2986 |2609 |2802 |
|Geekbench 6 All-in-One CPU |17268 |17948 |13565 |19845 |10690 |11976 |
GPU Geekbench 6 (OpenCL) | 56839 | 49059 | 35991 | 80819 | 28984 | 39643 |
|Cinebench 2024 single |129 |200 |113 |116 |118 |123 |
|Cinebench 2024 Multi |983 |1085 |998 |1450 |596 |722 |
|PugetBench for Photoshop |8773 |12354 |7348 |10515 |6598 |Unverified |
|PugetBench for Premiere Pro (Version 2.0.0+) |54920 |71122 |Not Tested |Not Tested |Not Tested |Not Tested |
|First 4K export (shorter time) |3 minutes, 3 seconds |3 minutes, 14 seconds |Not tested |Not tested |Not tested |
|Blender Classroom Test (second, less is better) |61 |44 |308 |Not tested |Not tested |Not tested |
|3DMark Time Spy (1080p) |9847 |Not Analyzed |Not Tested |12043 |5955 |5746 |
In real-world use, Panther Lake's speed is palpable.When I shot the Adobe Lightroom Classic catalog and started as fast as a MacBook, I bounced between images without everything crashing like it often does on other Windows laptops.“Healing direction and healing brush removal are fast.
And I edit photos using battery power.Unlike most Windows laptops I've used, the Zenbook Duo drains battery power as quickly as it's plugged into the wall.This is often something that Windows laptop manufacturers limit in their hardware design.But I'm relieved that Panther Leak isn't an issue with the Zenbook Duo. The hardware matches one of the main strengths of modern MacBooks. It's a big win for editing and creating content on Windows because it can be enabled.I hope all Windows laptop manufacturers follow suit.
Speaking of battery, Panther Lake on the Zenbook Duo is a champ.Especially when you consider that it powers two bright, high-resolution OLED displays.You can read more details about my real-world experience with the Zenbook Duo's battery life in my full laptop review, but here are a couple of highlights: It lasted more than 14 hours in our summary test, and could easily last nine workdays of dual-screen multitasking with enough juice for lighter casual use at night.
As for gaming, Intel claims that Panther Lake’s 12 Xe graphics cores are on par with Nvidia’s discrete RTX 4050 laptop GPU, much like how Strix Halo goes toe-to-toe with the RTX 4060. Digital Foundry’s early testing at CES found Panther Lake to be nipping at the heels of a desktop RTX 3050 card at 1080p resolution.
I did a lot of gameplay benchmarks with script only, because I wanted to add more gameplay time in real life.But one benchmark that stood out for me was Cyberpunk 2077, which hit 40fps at 1920 x 1200 resolution on Ultra settings.This is without ray tracing, but also without XeSS (Intel's high resolution enhancement feature).River Panther is nothing, even if AMD's Strix Halo chip still has a drawing advantage.
Once I started playing Cyberpunk, Helldivers 2, Battlefield 6, and a few other titles, I found that Panther Lake could usually hit 60fps or slightly below 1920 x 1200 resolution at high settings with XeSS Balanced enabled.You can increase the graphics quality by turning on ray tracing or changing XeSS from balanced to quality, but I only do that if I'm comfortable playing close to 30fps.I like 60fps as my baseline.
Tuning your gaming graphics to achieve a baseline of 40 to 60 fps means you can turn on the new generation of XeSS multiframes, which can render games at over 120 fps very well.You can control the generation of multiple frames in the Intel program and choose between 2x, 3x or 4x frame generation.Closer to 144Hz refresh (though I turn it off in multiplayer to make sure there's no chance of input lag spikes).Nvidia may be moving to 6x multi-frame generation with DLSS 4.5, but Intel is doing well with its slow pace — and it's still ahead of AMD's Redstone, which doesn't support multi-frame generation.
As excited as I am for Panther Lake to finally arrive, and stick the landing so well, I now hope to continue testing the slightly lower-end versions, which are available on mid-priced laptops rather than this $2,300 dual-screen giant battery.(A handheld, perhaps?) And I'm equally excited to see how new competitors from AMD and Qualcomm stack up, including the cheaper gaming-focused Strix Halo variant.It's an exciting time for gamers.New laptop launches (along with price hikes of course).
It has plenty of competition ahead of it, but Panther Lake is first out of the gate and looks like the Windows laptop chip to beat.Welcome back to the show, Intel.
