Aaron Klotz Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
redgarl The 388h will be the flagship CPU for Nvidia GPUs anyway. You will never use the iGPU unless it is used as an APU, which Nvidia will not be thrilled about since they need those for their mobile GPUs. If only Nvidia didn't force OEMs to use Intel CPUs for their GPUs… /SARCASM Reply
thestryker I am curious what Strix Halo at the 45W-65W range that PTL will run in laptops looks like. What I've seen of the handhelds indicates they're anywhere from 1.5-2.5x faster than LNL at ~20W. While Strix Halo certainly scales a lot more I think the performance in that power range may end up a lot closer than AMD would probably like. I imagine the PTL SKUs with 4 Xe3 cores will be the most common across the board. They'll also be in several of the thin/power limited gaming segments. It seems like ARL HX SKUs will continue to be used for the "high end" gaming segment. The top PTL SKU probably won't be very common much like the LNL ones. There will be plenty of other options in more affordable SKUs. Reply
usertests I don't see how Panther Lake won't win in power limited handhelds and efficiency generally. That's where having a ~2 node advantage comes in handy. Strix Halo requires about 20-25W before it takes off from Strix Point. Any handheld with Panther Lake should be superior. I will be surprised if this is not the finding from reviewers. As for pricing vs. Strix Point, Panther Lake 10/12 Xe core chips could be more expensive, but Strix/Gorgon Point prices need to go down, and Ryzen AI Max+ 388 should be reasonably priced to take on B390 and 5050/5060 laptops. Just include 32 GB LPDDR5X so it's not an AI-oriented product. Reply
Notton redgarl said: The 388h will be the flagship CPU for Nvidia GPUs anyway. You will never use the iGPU unless it is used as an APU, which Nvidia will not be thrilled about since they need those for their mobile GPUs. If only Nvidia didn't force OEMs to use Intel CPUs for their GPUs… /SARCASM No, if you were a laptop designer, you wouldn't use the X9 388H for a laptop that has a dGPU because the X-prefix CPUs have cut down PCIe lanes. More specifically X9 388H: 4x PCIe 5.0 / 8x PCIe 4.0 386H: 12x PCIe 5.0 / 8x PCIe 4.0 All RTX50 mobile dGPUs run off of at least 8x PCIe 5.0 lanes, unless you want to starve them of PCIe bandwidth. Techpowerup suggests they are all 16x cards, but I doubt that info is accurate, especially with the 5050m/5060m. I'm not saying it's impossible to combine an X9 388H with an RTX 5090m, but it wouldn't make sense. Reply
watzupken I don't think flagship Panther Lake chips will be cheap, but neither are AMD's Strix Point and Halo. It's unlikely the iGPU on the Intel chip to be as fast as the Strix Halo, but if Intel can price it between the flagship Strix Point and Strix Halo offerings, it's going to hurt AMD. Reply
bolweval "…And then, our strategy, okay, Strix Halo Ryzen AI Max competes against that (Panther Lake 12 Xe), and it's better than that in terms of graphics performance, all of that. And then, for the mainstream of the market, that don't value that much graphics , because honestly, most of the people that are using Notebooks, that are outside of the creator or gaming spaces are, you know, they don't need that graphics performance." Almost sounds like he's trying to convince himself… Reply
KevinS1010 I believe Panter Lake will destroy AMD this time, both in terms of performance and battery life. Serves them right for still betting on an RDNA3.5 APU. Reply
excalibur1814 What Panther lake cpus will (possibly) end up in the Surface Pro? Reply
irish_adam watzupken said: I don't think flagship Panther Lake chips will be cheap, but neither are AMD's Strix Point and Halo. It's unlikely the iGPU on the Intel chip to be as fast as the Strix Halo, but if Intel can price it between the flagship Strix Point and Strix Halo offerings, it's going to hurt AMD. While Strix Halo is quite expensive it's also a "halo" product without peer so of course it's expensive. All of that expense isn't just AMD's fault either as there's only really 2 mobile products out that use it, one tablet and one laptop so the OEMs can also charge a large premium as they have a monopoly on those chips. The chips are made on 4nm which is now an older node making it cheaper to produce so AMD have a lot of margin to play with. Panther lake on the other hand is on a cutting edge node with questionable yields, it will definitely cost Intel more to produce these chips. Intel is hardly flush with cash so it cannot afford to keep pumping out expensive products and selling them cheap which they have been forced to do in recent years. That being said I am excited to see the benchmarks come in for Panther Lake as it does look like Intel's first decent offering in a while. Though with global ram prices being what they are and will be this year Panther Lake could be a complete flop through no fault of it's own. Reply
TerryLaze irish_adam said: Intel is hardly flush with cash so it cannot afford to keep pumping out expensive products and selling them cheap which they have been forced to do in recent years. All their products are cheap, compared to AMD, they only use half the amount of full (ie expensive) cores and don't use any x3d or other things that would increase price. What they did in recent years is to pay TSMC their headroom which is what AMD is forced to always do. watzupken said: I don't think flagship Panther Lake chips will be cheap, but neither are AMD's Strix Point and Halo. It's unlikely the iGPU on the Intel chip to be as fast as the Strix Halo, but if Intel can price it between the flagship Strix Point and Strix Halo offerings, it's going to hurt AMD. It's going to hurt AMD either way, even if it's just because they used to be the monopoly on APUs with good GPU performance. Now every other (prob more) handheld will be intel, if not future consoles even, since selling consoles below cost has pretty much ended. Reply
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/amd-is-unphased-by-panther-lakes-big-integrated-gpu-its-not-even-a-fair-fight-to-compare-the-arc-b390-to-strix-halo-amd-exec-claims#main
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