Journalist 1: Yeah, especially when [it's] a nice thing, a panther is a cool thing. So if you're using cool things as code names, maybe it works.
Shalini Singh : And also, for you guys, after you've seen so many panthers, it's difficult to unsee it.
Journalist 1: I mean, I mean, 300 series, 400 series. I can see where this is going, but it's a number. It's not as cool, I guess.
Client Product Team Lead : Oh yeah, we'll have it in the [press pack] that will look different, so that there'll be all the retail differentiators, and in any tech related areas, you'll see it's called call out as Panther Lake, but in end user facing [materials and assets] is going to be Core Ultra Series 3, Series 4. So, that's the least offensive way of describing the products, and I could keep going. But they'll have codenames.
Journalist 2 : Do you guys see any sort of ripple effects from the ongoing price hikes, with RAM and storage as an example, like […] Copilot+ PCs, I believe, have a minimum spec of 32 gigabytes [this is not correct, and was quickly clarified as a 16GB requirement]. So if that's true, does that affect the sales of AI PCs or Copilot PCs, going into the new year?
Client Product Team Lead : So in general, a lot of the OEMs, and you can talk to them in detail, they plan for nine months to 12 months in terms of allotment of their [products] so in the beginning through towards the end of the year, I think a lot of them are going to be reasonably okay in terms of memory. But, in general, we have to wait and see. It's like, if we can predict the memory prices, we would all also invest in the stock market, that kind of thing. So it is going to be a challenge, which we are carefully monitoring and trying to work as much as we can closely [presumably meaning with OEMs].
Journalist 3 : Are we really going to be seeing developers using [inaudible, but the question pertains to AI TOPS and NPU performance]
Damien Triolet: One interesting detail about NPU 5 is that our first [inaudible, potentially Blackwell?] compatible, and PYP. So it will help developers move the roles they've done on NPU 4, and then keep investing into NPU so we see increasing traction.
Client Product Team Lead: A lot of the time, we want to make sure they're using the right engine for the right workload. So from an Intel perspective, it's not just about the NPU. AI means it's the GPU, NPU, and CPU. So as long as they're using the right engine, we're good. And from an NPU 5 perspective, our biggest thing was we shrunk it down in size so that we can fit a lot more inside Panther Lake. So from Lunar Lake to Panther Lake, the peak TOPS, it's fairly similar.
Mitch Lum: It's 40% more die area, if you think about Lunar Lake and the kinds of systems that it went into. Now we're going into many more kinds of laptops, and we wanted to make sure that we had that scalability.
Shalini Singh : But, it's probably the only x86 product to have fully featured XPU engines to run a performance GPU. You will not see that from any of our competitors.
Damien Triolet: And you will see that in the mlperf data that we have in the project, you should have a look later. When you look at the way our different engine, GPU and NPU, behaves in approach like LLM are very consistent. Both engines have, like, full access, memory bandwidth, a ton of compute for AI. That's not something you will see on the company's source product. They will either have the GPU enable something, or the NPU enable something. We fully enable both of them. And this gives a niche set [of tools] to developers [offering] the flexibility to target the right engine, for the right competitors.
Shalini Singh : In most cases, when they don't have either the fully labeled GPU or the NPU. They even have hybrid solutions, CPU plus NPU. You probably know that, right. But our GPU and NPU solutions in most cases [inaudible].
Journalist 4: I also expect this will require all four of you to answer. Why did you add X to the names?
Client Product Team Lead: In terms of X's, there was […] strong retail feedback. There are 12 [Xe3 cores]. They needed an easy way for customers walking to be able to identify that. So those [products with X in the name] will have the 12 Xe [cores], the bigger graphics, Arc graphics. So that is an easy way to identify that.
Shalini Singh: It's also the highest-end config. So most of the data that you see in the press deck will be based on that config.
Tom's Hardware: I have two questions focused on the Ultra 5 range. First, we know the core split for the eight-core configurations, and the 16-core configurations. I'm just wondering what the core split is for the 12-core configurations. And then there is a core Ultra 5 that has 10 Xe3 cores in it, but it didn't get that Core Ultra X5 branding, and I'm just wondering why that's the case.
Mitch Lum: Yeah, so, on that one, the 10 xe3 [cores], it [has] our B370. There's B390, it's 12 Xe, 370 is 10 Xe. We wanted to make sure it was really clear with the X designation that we were really referring to our top configuration, which is the B390. So that's the first piece. And then I think your second question was that [Core] Ultra 5, we've got a 12-core configuration. That's 4P, 4E and 4LP-E.
Journalist 4: I had a question on the Xe cores and the GPU. Now, are you finding most of your improvements from just increasing the number of cores? Or, were the cores redesigned? And what sort of improvements are you seeing internally today?
Damien Triolet: So the bigger part of the improvement is coming from a larger configuration. But as you've seen, some of the general numbers that we share is over 70% so there's obviously a little bit more coming to that. There's a clock increase, that's part of it, and then the IP improvements, as we've detailed, at ITT if you were there.
Mitch Lum: And, also the bigger cache, so the GPU has a bigger cache.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-panther-lake-press-q-and-a-transcript#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- AMD claims Panther Lake has 'too much baggage' for handheld PC use — fights back after Intel jabs AMD for using 'ancient silicon' in its Z2 series APUs
- Nvidia's next-gen RTX 60 series might not debut until the second half of 2027, says leaker — rumor claims Rubin architecture will power future consumer GPUs
- AMD is unfazed by Panther Lake's big integrated GPU — 'It's not even a fair fight' to compare the Arc B390 to Strix Halo, AMD exec claims
- 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 han
- MSI unlocks the full power of AMD CPUs with new MEG X870E Unify-X Max motherboard — premium Ryzen overclocking comes to AM5
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.