Intel had the most exciting product launch at CES 2026 and I absolutely wasn't expecting that

Go back a year to 18 months, and there's absolutely no way you'd have picked Intel as the top candidate for the most exciting product launch at CES from the big tech players. But here we are, CES in January 2026, and Intel's new Panther Lake chip isn't just the most exciting launch. It's virtually the only launch.

Nvidia is obviously utterly consumed by all things AI, plus maybe a touch of memory crisis management. So, there were no new GPUs from Team Green. And AMD had nothing but respins of existing products.

I suppose you could point to Qualcomm's second-gen Snapdragon X2 chips as something exciting. But the whole Arm-on-PC thing still has so much to prove, the jury isn't just out, it hasn't even been vetted yet.

Which leaves Intel and Panther Lake. Being pretty much the only genuinely new PC chip at CES means you could get the impression it wins the excitement prize simply by default. It comes first in a race of one, in other words.

Strictly, that's true. But Panther Lake is also genuinely exciting for several reasons. For PC gaming, it's the new Arc B390 iGPU that's most compelling. Intel is claiming up to 70% more performance than its previous-gen Lunar Lake iGPU. And Lunar Lake was really pretty decent.

Our Andy took Panther Lake for a quick spin in Las Vegas and came away impressed. How about Cyberpunk 2077 at 1200p, High settings, no upscaling and 53 fps average? OK, that's without ray tracing. But still impressive, eh?

Add in Quality upscaling, and you're looking at a very playable 74 fps. At slightly beyond 1080p. On a bleedin' Intel iGPU. You can read Andy's piece for some more games briefly tested. But this is a distinctly gameable iGPU.

In fact, it's very, very likely by far the quickest real-world gaming iGPU for the PC. And by that I mean excluding the likes of AMD's Strix Halo, which is super expensive and really built for tasks like running AI models, not games.

Certainly, AMD's "new" Ryzen AI 400 series won't threaten Panther Lake. Because the Ryzen AI 400 series is just the Ryzen AI 300 series with a very slapdash lick of paint. AMD won't have a genuinely new APU for at least a year, and maybe longer.

At the same time, Panther Lake also looks to be pretty power-efficient. There's even going to be a version aimed squarely at handheld gaming PCs, which is surely the most exciting application.

Then there's the whole Intel 18A thing. Panther Lake is the first chip on Intel's new node. 18A silicon still has plenty to prove. But this is surely a promising early viewing.

Indeed, Panther Lake is without any doubt the most promising new Intel chip since at least the Alder Lake architecture in 2021, and I'd argue probably longer still. Most of all, it has the makings of a really nifty chip for gaming handhelds, a subsection of the PC market that is itself an awful lot of fun.

Of course, a single chip doesn't make a golden summer of PC technology. Intel still has it all to prove. And it's hard to know what to make of the future of Intel Arc GPUs, including iGPUs, what with the Nvidia deal that's specifically about pairing Intel CPUs with Nvidia GPU chiplets.

But Panther Lake is clearly a step in the right direction. And it's definitely the most interesting PC chip at CES. And that's some result for Intel.