San Francisco, Jan 27, 2026, 01:42 (PST)
- Early tests show Intel’s new Panther Lake laptop chips can beat Apple’s M5 in some multi-core and graphics benchmarks.
- Reviewers said performance still swings by workload, with Apple retaining a clear lead in single-core speed.
- The first results are landing ahead of broader laptop availability, with pricing and thermals still open questions.
Intel’s newest Panther Lake laptop chips have posted higher multi-core benchmark scores than Apple’s M5 in early testing, giving the PC chipmaker a rare talking point against the silicon that has become the standard in premium laptops. (9to5Mac)
That matters now because Intel needs to show progress in thin-and-light computers, where buyers expect long battery life and fast performance without a bulky cooling system. A faster chip also gives laptop makers more room to lean on built-in graphics instead of adding a separate graphics processor.
It also comes as AMD’s newest Ryzen AI laptop chips and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon designs keep pressuring Intel on efficiency — how much work a computer can do for each watt it burns. That battle is where Windows laptops have often looked less polished next to a MacBook.
In a Wired review, Luke Larsen tested Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 parts — including the Core Ultra X9 388H — in MSI and Lenovo systems and published benchmark results that put the X9 ahead of Apple’s M5 in Cinebench 24 multi-core (1,285 versus 922) and in a 3DMark Steel Nomad Light graphics run (5,883 versus 5,077), while Apple stayed well in front in Cinebench single-core (199 versus 130). He quoted former Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger calling the technology the “cornerstone of the company’s turnaround strategy.” (WIRED)
The Verge’s Antonio G. Di Benedetto, testing the same flagship chip in Asus’ 2026 Zenbook Duo, wrote that most of his benchmark table was still dominated by Apple’s M5 and AMD’s top-tier Strix Halo, even as Intel beat AMD’s Strix Point in nearly every test he ran. He said Intel slightly edged the MacBook Pro in a 4K Adobe Premiere Pro export (3 minutes, 3 seconds versus 3 minutes, 14 seconds) and held up well on battery, despite Apple leading CPU tests such as Geekbench 6 single-core (4,208 for M5 versus 3,009 for Intel) and multi-core (17,948 versus 17,268). (The Verge)
Numbers like Geekbench, Cinebench and 3DMark are synthetic benchmarks — repeatable stress tests that let reviewers compare chips quickly, but rarely tell the whole story about a laptop’s feel after an hour on battery with fans ramping.
Multi-core scores are a rough proxy for heavy jobs that spread across many CPU cores, like video exports. Single-core results tend to track everyday snap — opening apps, browsing, and short bursts of work — and Apple still looks strong there in these early runs.
But the early winners are not guaranteed winners in stores. Chip performance can shift with power limits and cooling choices made by each laptop maker, and those settings can swing results more than people expect.
Intel is pitching stronger integrated graphics — the Arc GPU built into the chip — as a way for slimmer Windows laptops to do more creative work and light gaming without stepping up to a discrete Nvidia-class GPU. Whether that changes buying decisions will depend on what systems ship, how they’re priced, and whether they stay cool and quiet under load.
For now, the takeaway is narrower than the headlines: Intel’s Panther Lake has closed ground and, in certain tests, beaten Apple’s M5 — but the lead still moves around depending on the task and the laptop around the chip.
