- Intel’s Panther Lake lineup won’t come to consumers until Q1 2026, according to a leaked presentation slide
- This comes after the expected full launch in late 2025, but that is only for the Early Enablement Program
- Rumors suggest the delay is due to Intel’s 18A production process
Intel‘s Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200 processors are already here, present across powerful laptops (such as the MSI Prestige EVO AI+ lineup) and handhelds (notably the MSI Claw 8 AI+). Now, it’s time to look forward to Team Blue’s Panther Lake lineup – but it may not come as soon as initially promised.
As reported by VideoCardz, a leaked slide from a special event in China has seemingly revealed that Intel’s Panther Lake processors won’t launch until Q1 2026, while its EEP (Early Enablement Program) will start later this year in preparation. This is contrary to former interim CEO Michelle Holthaus’ previous confirmation of the lineup’s launch and availability in the second half of 2025, indicating a delay. Ultimately, it means consumers may have to wait until 2026 to get their hands on Intel Panther Lake-powered products.
Reasons for the delay reportedly stem from difficulties with managing Team Blue’s 18A manufacturing process in terms of the original production schedule. It’s not exactly clear why this delay is in place, but if the setback is significant enough, it could have an impact on Intel’s placement in the market (especially up against AMD).
We know that AMD still has its Ryzen AI 400 series processors set to be announced, and we still don’t know if it will launch around the same time as Intel’s Panther Lake.
It’s also worth noting that Team Red’s Ryzen AI 300 series APUs have already made huge leaps in processing power, notably the Ryzen AI 395+ Max – so if its new lineup does arrive in Q1 2026, it will be interesting to see how it fairs against the Panther Lake chips using the Xe3 architecture.
What does this mean for handheld gaming PCs?
With Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V processor, we’ve seen the new MSI Claw 8 AI+ (the same chip is also used in Dell’s XPS 13 laptop) work wonders at providing huge improvements in gaming – especially in comparison to the previous MSI Claw A1M. Spoiler: it wasn’t good.
With Panther Lake processors now on the (somewhat distant) horizon, I’m hopeful that we can get even stronger gaming ultrabooks and handheld gaming PCs based on these new chips. Intel’s Technical Marketing Vice President, Robert Hallock, confirmed Team Blue’s plans to support gaming handhelds (as reported by LaptopMag) and this could work perfectly for competition.
AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme is slated for ‘early 2025’ as a part of the Ryzen AI 300 series family – it will be used for handhelds like the Lenovo Legion Go 2 (still a prototype), but it’s still not clear when that will launch. It also seems as though it will rival the Core Ultra 7 258V processor, which may end up being a good indication of how both Team Red and Team Blue’s upcoming lineups could perform against each other.
I hope that both lineups provide drastic leaps in power for handhelds across the board, further placing handheld gaming within the limelight where it belongs – let’s just hope that these delays don’t make it a long wait…
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