- Intel’s Panther Lake alignment will not reach consumers until the first quarter of 2026, according to a filtered presentation slide
- This occurs after the complete launch expected at the end of 2025, but that is only for the early authorization program
- Rumors suggest that the delay is due to the production process of Intel 18A
Intel Lake Core Ultra 200 Lunar Processors are already here, present in powerful laptops (such as MSI prestige alignment Evo AI+) and hand computers (especially Claw 8 AI+) MSI). Now, it is time to wait for the alignment of Team Blue’s Panther Lake, but it may not arrive as soon as it was initially promised.
As reported by Videcardz, a filtered slide of a special event in China has apparently revealed that Intel’s Panther Lake processors will not be launched until the first quarter of 2026, while its EEP (Early Habilitation Program) will begin at the end of this year in preparation. This is contrary to the previous confirmation of former Interim Director Michelle Holthaus of the launch and availability of alignment in the second half of 2025, indicating a delay. Ultimately, it means that consumers can have to wait until 2026 to have the Intel Panther Lake products in their hands.
According to the reports, the reasons for the delay are derived from the difficulties with the management of the manufacturing process 18a of the Team Blue in terms of the original production schedule. It is not exactly clear why this delay is in place, but if the reverse is significant enough, it could have an impact on Intel’s location on the market (especially against AMD).
We know that AMD still has its Ryzen AI 400 series established to advertise, and we still do not know if it will be launched at approximately at the same time as Intel Panther Lake.
It is also worth noting that the APUs of the Ryzen AI 300 series of the Red team have already made great jumps in the processing power, especially the Ryzen AI 395+ Max, so if its new alignment arrives in the first quarter of 2026, it will be interesting to see how it stands out against the Panther Lake chips using the XE3 architecture.
What does this mean for handpames?
With the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, we have seen the new MSI Claw 8 AI+ (the same chip is also used on the XPS 13 laptop of Dell) that work wonders to provide great improvements in the games, especially compared to the CLAW A1M of anterior MSI. Spoiler: It wasn’t good.
With Panther Lake processors now on the horizon (something distant), I hope we can obtain even stronger game ultrabooks and hand game PC based on these new chips. Intel’s technical marketing vice president Robert Hallock confirmed Team Blue’s plans to support play hand computers (as reported by the laptop) and this could work perfectly for competition.
Ryzen Z2 Extreme of AMD is scheduled for ‘early 2025’ as part of the Ryzen AI 300 series: it will be used for hand hand as the Lenovo Legion Go 2 (it remains a prototype), but it is not yet clear when it will be launched. It also seems that it will rival the Core Ultra 7 258V processor, which can end up being a good indication of how the next alignments of Team Red and Team Blue could work with each other.
I hope that both alignments provide drastic jumps in power for hand computers in all areas, even more placing the hand games inside the center of attention where it belongs; Hopefully these delays do not make it a long wait …
