Intel revealed the Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 mobile CPUs headed up by the Core Ultra X9 388H , at CES 2026 earlier this year. Intel promised that the flagship CPU would deliver up to 60% better multi-thread performance than the predecessor. While laptops with the Core Series 3 CPUs are only slated to arrive on January 27 , some early benchmarks have appeared online ahead of the official launch date, courtesy of x86 is dead&back on X. According to the PassMark benchmark results , the Core Ultra X9 388H scored 37,904 points in the multi-thread benchmark and 4,451 points in the single-thread benchmark. This is a good 10% faster than the Core Ultra 9 285H (34,436 points) it is replacing and a solid 29% faster than the aging Core Ultra 9 185H in the multicore benchmarks. When it comes to single-core benchmarks, the Core Ultra X9 388H is basically only on-par with the 285H, but around 20% faster than the Core Ultra 9 185H.

It is, however, worth noting that these numbers are based on the average between two benchmarking runs, which varied greatly. During one benchmarking session, the Core Ultra X9 388H scored a whopping 40,523 points , although the hardware configurations don't seem to have changed from run to run. The test laptop, memory, and CPU clocks all appear to be the same, suggesting that environmental differences or software configuration may be to blame. The high score was actually the second one registered, so while these early benchmarks should still be taken with a pinch of salt, the numbers indicate that the new Intel Panther Lake CPUs might be impressive performers. For reference, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 470 scored 36,591 points in the PassMark multicore tests and 4,216 points in the single-score tests. The iGPU in the X9 388H was also previously benchmarked in Cyberpunk 2077 , effectively doubling the performance of AMD's Strix Halo Radeon 890M iGPU. These latest results show reasonable performance gains, although we have yet to see the mid-range Panther Lake CPUs, which showed middling results in early benchmarks in late 2025.