At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, AMD’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Client Product Group, Rahul Tikoo, shared insights on the competitive landscape against Intel’s new Panther Lake mobile CPUs. Tikoo expressed confidence in AMD’s lineup, particularly the Strix Halo and Ryzen AI Max APUs, asserting that these products effectively meet market demands and outperform Intel’s offerings.
AMD’s Position Against Intel’s Panther Lake
Tikoo emphasized that the launch of Intel’s Panther Lake does not intimidate AMD. He stated, “Strix Halo, or Ryzen AI Max will kill it,” suggesting a significant performance edge thanks to discrete-level graphics capability.
- AMD provides two product lines targeting different market segments.
- Strix Halo and Ryzen AI Max cater to power users and gamers.
- Ryzen AI series focuses on mainstream consumers with less graphic performance needs.
Market Strategy and Consumer Choices
Tikoo noted that many notebook users outside the gaming and creator space do not prioritize high graphics performance. Instead, consumers evaluate products based on specific applications and their usage requirements. “People make choices,” he reiterated, indicating that targeted solutions are preferable over one-size-fits-all chips.
Criticism of Intel’s Benchmarking Practices
In a dig at Intel, Tikoo pointed out that Intel excluded Strix Halo from its benchmark comparisons. Instead, Intel focused on its lower-end Ryzen AI series and earlier chips, implying a lack of confidence in a head-to-head matchup with AMD’s top-tier products.
Intel’s Panther Lake Specifications
Intel’s Panther Lake represents their most robust mobile CPU yet, utilizing a new 18A process node. Features include:
- High-performance Cougar Cove P-cores and Darkmount E-cores.
- Xe3 integrated graphics engine.
- Core Ultra X9 388H model with:
- 16 cores (4 P-cores, 8 E-cores, 4 LP-cores).
- 18MB of L3 cache.
- Support for up to 96GB of LPDDR5x-9600 memory.
Performance Claims
Intel asserts that the X9 388H achieves:
- 10% more performance than the previous Arrow Lake-H Ultra 9 285H.
- 60% more performance compared to the Lunar Lake Ultra 9 288V.
- 77% faster average performance over the Ultra 9 288V in gaming tests.
Performance benchmarks also suggest that the X9 388H delivers gaming performance comparable to an Nvidia RTX 4050 laptop GPU, all while maintaining a lower sustained power usage of 45W.
Tikoo concluded with a hint about Panther Lake’s pricing, implying it may not be competitive, stating, “Wait until you see the price point on that.” AMD’s confidence in the Strix Halo and Ryzen AI Max suggests a fierce competition ahead in the GPU market.
