First Intel Core Ultra 7 355 Benchmarks Surface
Initial benchmarks for Intel's new Core Ultra 7 355 'Panther Lake' mobile processor have appeared, showing a significant performance gap compared to the higher-end Core Ultra X7. The results, taken from a 2026 Dell XPS 14, suggest the more affordable 'U-series' chip may be insufficient for demanding development workloads. The performance difference highlights the distinction between Intel's processor tiers for mobile computing.
- The Panther Lake processor family is the first to use Intel's 18A manufacturing process for its CPU tile, which employs new RibbonFET (Gate-All-Around) transistors for improved power efficiency and performance scaling. - Processors in this series utilize a hybrid architecture with "Cougar Cove" Performance-cores and "Darkmont" Efficient-cores, including new Low-Power Efficient-cores (LP E-cores) designed to handle background tasks with minimal energy use. - The performance difference stems from core configuration: the Core Ultra 7 355 has 8 cores (4 P-cores, 4 LP E-cores), while the high-end Core Ultra X7 358H has 16 cores (4 P-cores, 8 E-cores, 4 LP E-cores). - A key differentiator is the integrated graphics; the Core Ultra 7 355 includes a 4-core Intel Graphics unit, whereas the Core Ultra X7 features a much larger 12-core Xe3 "Battlemage" GPU, branded as Intel Arc B390 in some models. - Panther Lake introduces a new NPU 5 (Neural Processing Unit) capable of up to 50 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) to accelerate on-device AI workloads, a significant increase over the previous "Lunar Lake" generation. - The Core Ultra 7 355 is configured with a Processor Base Power of 25W, positioning it in a lower power tier than the high-performance H-series chips which typically start around 45W and are intended for more demanding tasks like gaming or mobile workstations. - This processor generation, branded as Core Ultra Series 3, supports next-generation I/O, including Wi-Fi 7, Thunderbolt 5, and LPDDR5X-7467 memory.
