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Intel’s cheaper Panther Lake chips are for budget-friendly laptops

2026-04-16T09:08:34-04:00

Intel is announcing a family of cheaper Panther Lake laptop processors called the Core Series 3 line. They're built on the same Intel 18A process as the higher-end Core Ultra Series 3 family of chips, but they have less of just about everything spec-wise.

The Core Series 3 (non-Ultra) line encompasses six different chips, with the highest end being a six-core Intel Core 7 360 and the low-end model being a five-core Intel Core 3 304. Compared to their Ultra counterparts, the Core Series 3 across the board have fewer CPU cores, Xe graphics cores, and PCIe lanes. They're capable of less TOPS, a lower TDP wattage, and are limited to two Thunder …

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Intel will help build Elon Musk’s Terafab AI chip factory

2026-04-07T11:44:06-04:00

Elon Musk's Terafab AI chip project in Austin, Texas, is gaining a crucial new partner: Intel.

On Tuesday, the American chipmaker announced it was signing on to help design and build the sprawling facility, which would supply AI chips to Musk's two companies, SpaceX (newly merged with xAI) and Tesla. Musk needs AI chips to power his plans to build a "robot army" that includes self-driving cars and humanoid robots, as well as for the data centers he plans on launching into space. SpaceX plans on making its initial public offering later this year.

"Terafab will close the gap between today's chip production and the future's demand - a future …

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Intel and LG Display may have beaten Apple and Qualcomm with the best laptop battery life ever

2026-03-26T05:56:40-04:00

One of the coolest laptops we saw at CES in January was the new Dell XPS 16, with a unique 1-120Hz variable refresh rate display that can sip power when you don't need the screen to stay speedy.

Just how little power might it consume? Notebookcheck has tested a version of the laptop with that LG Display screen and a new Intel Panther Lake chip - and it appears to be the most efficient laptop that's ever gone through its Wi-Fi web browsing test. At idle, the Core Ultra 325 laptop drew as little as 1.5 watts, and lasted nearly 27 hours of web browsing despite only housing a 70 watt-hour pack. That's well shy of the 99.5Wh Dell has sometimes …

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Arm’s first CPU ever will plug into Meta’s AI data centers later this year

2026-03-24T18:28:49-04:00

After decades of only licensing its chip designs for others to use, UK-based Arm revealed the first chip it's producing on its own, and the first customer. Dubbed the Arm AGI CPU, it's another chip designed for inference, or running the cloud processing for AI tools like AI agents that can continue to spawn more and more tasks to run at once. The first company in line to use it is Meta, which has reportedly struggled to launch its own AI chips.

Meta says it's both the lead partner and co-developer, and plans to work on "multiple generations" of the data center CPUs, for use along with hardware from other vendors like Nvidia and AMD. Arm cus …

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Intel announces Core Ultra 200HX Plus CPUs for high-end gaming laptops

2026-03-23T08:20:03-04:00

Intel has a pair of new flagship CPUs coming to a variety of pricey gaming laptops: the Core Ultra 9 290 HX Plus and Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus. The Arrow Lake Refresh chips sport 24 cores / 24 threads and 20 cores / 20 threads, respectively. Like Intel's recently announced desktop CPUs, the new Plus models for laptops are "pushed further for enthusiasts," and also feature the Intel Binary Optimization Tool that can improve native performance "in select games."

The key features of Intel's new Arrow Lake Refresh laptop chips. | Image: Intel" data-portal-copyright="Image: Intel"> Where the new laptop chips fall in Intel's lineup. | Image: Intel" data-portal-copyright="Image: Intel">

Intel's Josh Newman states that the new chips "deliver meaningful, real‑world performance gains so users can experience smoother gameplay, faster creation workflows, and mo …

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Intel announces Core Ultra 270K Plus and 250K Plus, its ‘fastest gaming desktop processors ever’

2026-03-11T12:29:35-04:00

Intel hasn't made it easy to buy a flagship desktop chip. The company's 2022 and 2023 Raptor Lake chips ran hot, power-hungry, and had those infamous crashes, while 2024's Arrow Lake-based Core Ultra 9 285K had lackluster gaming performance that the company has tried to address with updates.

Now, Intel claims it has finally surpassed both predecessors with "Intel's fastest gaming desktop processors ever": the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 250K Plus, shipping March 26th.

While we don't have every detail today, the company claims the 24-core, 5.5GHz turbo Core Ultra 7 270K Plus can beat both the Raptor Lake i9-14900K and the Arrow Lake U …

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Intel Panther Lake laptop CPU review: call it a comeback

2026-01-26T08:26:04-05:00

Panther Lake CPUs in hand at CES 2026.

Intel's been talking the talk for months about its new generation of laptop chips, the first made on its long-anticipated 18A process. 18A is meant to steer Intel back toward bluer waters by making its chips better, and, if possible, attracting chip designers like Qualcomm and Nvidia to use Intel's foundries, not just its rival TSMC's. Last year's Arrow Lake chips received a mixed reception, particularly desktop versions. The mobile-only Lunar Lake chips, on the other hand, were great, showing that the x86 architecture still has plenty of fight in it against a slowly rising tide of Arm-based Windows laptops. But Lunar Lake was a one-off that …

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Asus Zenbook Duo (2026) review: twice as nice — for a price

2026-02-11T19:52:53-05:00

I’m seeing double, and I’m digging it.

The most helpful thing you can add to any laptop for productivity is a second screen. That's why I love laptops like the Asus Zenbook Duo. Its twin 14-inch OLED displays are attached by a redesigned hinge that now holds them closer together and on a single plane, for a more seamless look than previous models. The Zenbook Duo and its nearest rival look odd at first glance, but having a twin monitor setup available to you anywhere is incredibly handy. And so cool, too. Let them stare.

In addition to the new hinge, the 2026 Zenbook Duo gets Asus' lightly textured Ceraluminum coating (which sounds silly but looks and feels great), a much larger …

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Intel is planning a custom Panther Lake CPU for handheld PCs

2026-01-07T05:58:28-05:00

Intel announced yesterday that it's developing an entire "handheld gaming platform" powered by its new Panther Lake chips and joining an increasingly competitive field. Qualcomm is hinting about potential Windows gaming handhelds showing up at the Game Developers Conference in March, and AMD's new Strix Halo chips could lead to more powerful handhelds.

According to IGN and TechCrunch, sources say Intel is going to compete by developing a custom Intel Core G3 "variant or variants" just for handhelds that could outperform the Arc B390 GPU on the chips it just announced. IGN reports that by using the new 18A process, Intel can cut different di …

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Samsung and Intel’s OLED tech makes HDR easier on laptop battery life

2026-01-06T20:06:12-05:00

Samsung Display and Intel have teamed up on laptop technology called SmartPower HDR that they claim can minimize power usage while you're watching HDR content on an OLED screen. Intel showed off this technology last year, but Samsung Display is sharing details about how it works and the power savings you might expect. However, the company didn't say which laptops may get SmartPower HDR, so it's still unclear when it will actually be in laptops you can use.

With SmartPower HDR, Samsung Display says the laptop's chipset monitors the peak brightness of each frame it's rendering in real-time. Then the OLED panel's timing controller chip uses th …

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