CES 2026: New Intel Chips Will Appear in Your Gaming Portable Devices
Every year at CES, Intel and AMD announce their latest processors. This year, Intel unveiled its first line of chips manufactured using the 18a process technology , which is 18 angstroms (or less than 2 nm). Simply put, this means these chips can pack a lot of technology into a small area, delivering significant performance gains.
The new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors , colloquially known as Panther Lake, are aimed at laptops and mini PCs. But that doesn’t mean they don’t deliver impressive performance. During the presentation, Intel promised “77% faster gaming performance” and, for anyone who actually uses their PCs for work, “60% faster multi-threaded performance.” Also impressive is the company’s claim that the new processors will deliver “up to 27 hours of battery life,” rivaling Apple’s M-series processors and other ARM-based chips from manufacturers like Qualcomm. Battery life has long been a sore point for both Intel and AMD, and I’m looking forward to testing computers using Panther Lake processors.
And then there’s artificial intelligence. Intel claims its top-end Intel Core Ultra Series 3 models have 50 TOPS for the NPU and 180 TOPS combined when combining NPU and GPU performance. In other words, this means higher AI performance for developers who don’t want to bother with the cloud and prefer the speed and privacy of a locally hosted AI model.
Speaking of the GPU, Intel has upgraded its integrated graphics this generation to the Intel Arc B390, which has twice the cache of the previous model and 50% more cores. I already mentioned the 77% increase in gaming performance, but AI developers will also see a 53% increase in performance compared to the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 and a 2x increase in performance compared to the Intel Core Ultra Series 1.
So, more advanced computers. This is quite typical for CES, but there’s one more nuance. Intel is targeting AMD’s dominance in the portable gaming PC market.
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Until now, most portable gaming PCs have used AMD chips, and those that have chosen Intel have been criticized in reviews for bugs or poor performance optimization. The Steam Deck uses an AMD chip, as does the Xbox portable console . Intel says it plans to change this.
After announcing a new integrated graphics processor and showcasing features like frame generation and ray tracing, the company announced it would “launch an entire portable gaming platform based on Panther Lake.” This means serious steps, and soon—Panther Lake won’t last long before it’s replaced. The company didn’t offer many details, but it did show a slide showing partners who will be using Intel chips in their portable devices, including Acer, MSI, and, of course, Microsoft. I suspect we’ll see another portable Xbox model soon.
That’s about it for Intel this year. The new chips are smaller, more powerful, and more efficient, but the company wisely plans to use them to address its weaknesses, particularly in gaming and battery life. This makes sense. Considering that developers like Apple have frequently eschewed Intel for a decade, the company finds itself at a disadvantage.
According to Intel, pre-orders for the first models powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors will begin on January 6, with availability beginning on January 27.