Intel Panther Lake Shows Up on Geekbench
Intel's upcoming Panther Lake CPUs have quietly appeared in the Geekbench database, giving us an early look at what to expect from the next generation of Intel mobile chips. These processors are aimed at gaming laptops and high performance notebooks, so any early benchmarks are worth a closer look for PC gamers.
The specific chip spotted is the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H. This is a mobile processor that will launch as part of the first wave of Panther Lake CPUs. According to the Geekbench entry, it delivers a single core score of 2,849 and a multi core score of 15,434.
On paper those numbers might not sound game changing, but putting them in context with current gen chips and competitors tells a more complete story.
How Panther Lake Compares to Current Chips
The easiest way to judge Panther Lake is to line it up against Intel's existing Core Ultra 9 285H, which is one of the top Meteor Lake mobile chips used in gaming laptops today.
The new Core Ultra 9 386H is a 16 core design, with:
- 4 Performance cores
- 8 Efficient cores
- 4 Low Power Efficient cores
The current Core Ultra 9 285H is also a 16 core chip but with a slightly different mix:
- 6 Performance cores
- 8 Efficient cores
- 2 Low Power Efficient cores
In Geekbench 6, the 285H scores around 2,608 points in single core and 14,812 points in multi core. That means the leaked Panther Lake 386H is roughly:
- About 9 percent faster in single core
- A few percent faster in multi core
So based on this early result, we are looking at incremental performance gains rather than a massive leap. That applies especially to raw CPU performance that would impact game frame rates in CPU heavy titles.
However, Panther Lake is not just about bumping scores a tiny bit. Intel has already signaled that the real focus this generation is on efficiency rather than chasing the top of the charts in raw performance.
Against Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD
The wider picture is where this result gets more interesting. While Panther Lake improves on Intel's own Meteor Lake chip, it still trails some of the most advanced mobile processors on the market in pure single core power.
Recent numbers show:
- Apple's M5 chips reaching over 4,000 points in Geekbench single core
- Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 also scoring above 4,000 in single core
- AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 landing around 2,800 in single core, similar to Panther Lake
This highlights the current landscape. Arm based chips like Apple M series and Snapdragon X2 are way ahead in peak single core performance while x86 processors from Intel and AMD are clustered at a lower level in this particular benchmark.
Of course Geekbench is only one synthetic test. It is not a full picture of what gaming or content creation will feel like in the real world. But Geekbench does usually track general CPU capability reasonably well, so it is fair to say that Panther Lake is unlikely to suddenly become the absolute performance champion based on these numbers alone.
Efficiency Might Be Panther Lake’s Real Weapon
While benchmark hunters might be underwhelmed by the raw scores, the more important story for mobile gaming and laptops could be power efficiency. Panther Lake is built on Intel's new 18A process node, which is supposed to deliver major improvements in performance per watt.
Sadly, Geekbench tells us nothing about power draw or battery life. We do not see clock speeds, voltages, or how the chip behaves under sustained load in a thin and light gaming laptop chassis. That is where process improvements and architectural changes can really matter.
Intel has already suggested in presentations that Panther Lake will shine more in efficiency than in outright speed. For gamers, that could translate into:
- Cooler running laptops with less fan noise
- More consistent performance over long gaming sessions
- Better battery life when playing lighter games or streaming
- Higher performance at a given power limit compared to Meteor Lake
If Intel can hold performance steady or slightly higher while cutting power use significantly, that alone would be a big win for real world laptop gaming even if the benchmark headlines do not look spectacular.
What This Means for PC Gamers
For anyone planning a gaming laptop upgrade, these early Geekbench results suggest a few things:
- Do not expect Panther Lake to destroy current gen chips in raw CPU performance
- Single core and multi core performance gains over Core Ultra 9 285H look modest so far
- The real value may show up as better thermals, battery life, and sustained performance
- Competition from Apple and Qualcomm remains fierce in mobile performance per core
We should also remember this is an early leak. The tested chip might be an engineering sample with unfinished firmware and unoptimized settings. Final retail silicon could perform a bit better.
The missing piece right now is any solid data on power consumption. Without that we cannot judge how good Panther Lake will be for thin gaming laptops and powerful but portable systems.
Intel is expected to reveal much more at CES in January when Panther Lake officially launches. Until then, this Geekbench leak suggests that Intel's next mobile lineup is an evolution rather than a revolution, with efficiency likely to be the star of the show rather than record breaking benchmark numbers.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/processors/intels-next-gen-panther-lake-cpu-pops-up-in-geekbench-with-decent-but-not-exactly-spectacular-benchmark-numbers/
