Don’t be fooled: Intel’s Panther Lake graphics come with a catch | usagoldmines.com

“Intel Graphics” on a Panther Lake laptop, benchmarked

I have my hands on a Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra, which has an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H CPU. This Core Ultra Series 3-powered machine comes with “Intel Graphics” hardware.

This particular laptop offers impressive graphics performance thanks to its Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU. But I can isolate the Intel Graphics and run some benchmarks to test its performance.

I ran 3DMark Time Spy, an important benchmark we always run when we put laptops through their paces. For this benchmark, I took the graphics score so we can really focus on the iGPUs.

Chris Hoffman / Foundry

The Intel Graphics paired with the Intel Core Ultra 7 356H CPU delivered a score of 3,013 while the Intel Arc B390 GPU paired with the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H hardware delivered a score of 6,267.

Compared to the Asus ExpertBook Ultra and its top-tier Intel Arc B390 GPU, the Intel Graphics in the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra are dramatically slower. Even if you doubled this iGPU’s performance, it wouldn’t catch up to the Arc B390!

Intel Arc is a cut above Intel Graphics

When shopping, keep this in mind: if you want top-tier integrated graphics performance, what you want is Intel Arc—but not all Panther Lake chips offer Intel Arc graphics. In fact, most don’t.

If you look at Intel’s product matrix, you’ll see that the difference between these chips is largely attributable to the number of Xe cores. Those top-tier “Intel Arc” iGPUs have 12 Xe cores while the average “Intel Graphics” iGPU has just 4 Xe cores. In my experience, some of the lower-end models have as few as only 2 Xe cores, and those ones will be dramatically slower than what I’ve shown in the above benchmarks.

Intel

How can you identify whether a system has a top-tier Intel Arc iGPU? Look for an “X” in its name—mostly.

For example, the Intel Core Ultra X7 and Core Ultra X9 processors have the Intel Arc B390 iGPU (as seen in the chart above). The Intel Core Ultra 5 338H processor offers a slower Intel Arc B370 iGPU with 10 Xe cores, although it doesn’t have “X” in its name.

Aside from that, all other Panther Lake processors—the Core Ultra 5 and Core Ultra 7 chips here—have “Intel Graphics.” That’s the slower one. And some have only 2 cores instead of 4 cores! Those will be even slower.

If you’re buying a Core Ultra Series 3 laptop and you want fast integrated graphics, you need to look for “Intel Arc” in the CPU specs.

Even so, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake’s iGPUs may be faster

While the “Intel Graphics” in Panther Lake are an improvement over previous-generation Intel Graphics, they’re slower than the Intel Arc iGPUs you can get on some Lunar Lake or Arrow Lake systems.

Some of those Lunar Lake Arc iGPUs are just fast enough for games like Doom: The Dark Ages to perform acceptably… barely. With a slower Panther Lake Intel Graphics iGPU, they won’t be realistically playable.

Thomas Rau

So, if you’re picking a laptop with integrated graphics, Core Ultra Series 3 isn’t always a clear-cut winner. Many previous-generation Core Ultra Series 2 laptops still have stronger iGPU performance than the average Panther Lake laptop. That’s easy to overlook when so much of the marketing is focused on the strengths of those Arc iGPUs. (Plus, those older laptops may even be less expensive now!)

Don’t rely solely on spec lists. Instead, check out benchmarks like the ones we publish in our laptop reviews. Even laptops with the same hardware can differ in performance! You have to test to know.

You need Panther Lake and Intel Arc

Many people can get by just fine with Intel Graphics. If you don’t plan on playing PC games or using 3D-acclerated apps on your PC, there’s no point in spending all that extra money for a blazing-fast iGPU. These less expensive “Intel Graphics” parts are great for keeping PC prices down for the masses—and scoring a laptop that’s within your budget.

What Intel’s doing here is totally fine. And Intel isn’t alone! While Qualcomm talked up graphics performance with its initial Snapdragon X Elite processors, the company eventually shipped hardware with much slower Adreno iGPUs. That’s fine for many people, what with it costing less to manufacture and therefore cheaper for those who don’t need a speedy iGPU. But, like with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X push, something is getting lost in the marketing here for Intel.

Just as not all Qualcomm Snapdragon X hardware offered strong integrated graphics, the same is true for Intel’s Panther Lake hardware.

You can’t assume a laptop will deliver fast graphics performance just because it has “Core Ultra Series 3” on the label—you have to look for “Intel Arc.” And if you do see “Intel Arc,” you can’t assume it offers Panther Lake performance—you’ll have to look for a “Core Ultra Series 3” badge. It goes both ways. Buyer, beware.

Further reading: The best overall laptops on the market right now