AMD Fires Back At Intel Panther Lake: Shows How Its Ryzen AI MAX & Ryzen AI 400/300 CPU Will Compete & Win Against Core Ultra Series 3

AMD is showcasing the competitive positioning of its Ryzen AI MAX & Ryzen AI 400/300 CPUs, and how they compare against Intel's Panther Lake "Core Ultra Series 3".

AMD Claims Its Ryzen AI MAX CPUs Win The High-Performance Segment Versus Intel's Panther Lake, While Ryzen AI 400/300 Lead The Mainstream & Entry-Level Segments

Intel's Panther Lake CPUs will be launching next week, but prior to the launch, AMD is showcasing its own competitive measurement of how users can compare its chips against the upcoming Core Ultra Series 3 lineup. Since Panther Lake isn't out yet, the results are based on AMD's internal expectations, & from what has been showcased.

AMD Ryzen vs Intel Panther Lake in the Premium Segment

AMD has positioned its Ryzen notebook family into four segments. The top one is "Premium," which is now dominated by the Ryzen AI MAX family, which recently saw the introduction of two brand new SoCs, the Ryzen AI MAX+ 392 and the Ryzen AI MAX+ 388. These chips further solidify AMD's graphics lead in a singular SoC offering while offering more value in a whole new range of devices, such as ASUS's TUF A14 series.

Since these are the top-tier chips, they are being compared against the Panther Lake "X" SKUs, which pack the highest graphics option in the form of the Arc B390 or the Arc B370. As per the claim, AMD expects its Ryzen AI MAX offerings to win in the content creation, gaming, and AI segments. For AI, AMD compares all three aspects: the CPU, NPU, and GPU. So, in the high-end range, AMD doesn't feel the need to roll out a Strix Halo successor yet, when the existing chips can tackle the competition so well.

AMD Ryzen vs Intel Panther Lake in the Mainstream Segment

Moving into the mainstream and thin-light segment, AMD positions its Ryzen AI 400 against the Core Ultra 9 and Core Ultra 7 "Panther Lake" chips, while the Ryzen AI 300 is positioned against the rest of the Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 5 "Panther Lake" SKUs.

Most chips in this segment from Intel will feature just 4 Xe3, which is one third the full Xe3 iGPU config. AMD, on the other hand, will still maintain Radeon 890M/880M iGPUs with 16-12 compute units, and a boosted clock configuration on the newer parts. This means that AMD can once again claim a win in not just content creation, but also similar or better gaming performance.

AMD Ryzen vs Intel Wildcat Lake in the Entry-Level Segment

Lastly, Intel has its Core Ultra Series 3 "Wildcat Lake" SKUs for entry-level platforms. These features have just 2 Xe3 cores and 6 CPU cores. AMD is positioning its Ryzen AI 300 and Ryzen 200 entry-level SKUs against the blue team and claiming a in aross all three segments, including content creation, gaming, and AI. This is one segment where we can expect a heated battle between the two adversaries since the bulk of sales happens in the entry-level and mainstream markets. So pricing and efficiency will be a crucial aspect here.

AMD Debunks Intel's Panther Lake Claims Vs Ryzen Notebook

AMD doesn't stop at just the competitive positioning; they also debunk some of Intel's claims presented during CES 2026.

Starting with the performance results of the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, particularly its 12 Xe3 graphics. Intel claimed that X9 388H offers graphics in a league of its own, but AMD offers a counterclaim, stating that the Ryzen AI MAX 395+ has 37% faster graphics than what Intel presented. We did test Core Ultra X9 388H at Intel's booth here, and witnessed a big boost over the Lunar Lake Xe2 iGPU, but we also affirm that while it's a big lead for a thin and light premium device, Strix Halo should retain an overall faster iGPU experience. We will see how Panther Lake compares against Strix Halo in our review next week.

AMD also states that Intel claimed its Core Ultra X9 388H CPU has a huge advantage in performance scaling and productivity, but AMD once again dismisses that by saying that the Ryzen AI MAX 395+ has twice the number of threads. Intel's Panther Lake CPUs max out at 16 cores in a 4 P-Core, 8 E-Core, and 4 LP E-Core configuration without hyperthreading support, while Strix Halo packs 16 Zen 5 cores with 32 threads.

Talking about efficiency, AMD says that Intel claimed "Leading x86 Power Efficiency" for Panther Lake, but their own data shows almost no advantage in power efficiency and better life compared to Lunar Lake. We went back to Intel's own slide decks to see if that was the case, and Intel does claim very similar or, in some cases, higher SoC power than Lunar Lake. The specific Intel slide is shown below:

Here you can see that the baseline is set as the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 against the Core Ultra X9 388H. The Panther Lake chip is still up to 78% lower SoC power draw than the Ryzen chip, but we will have to wait & see how it performs in actual tests.

Lastly, AMD has made it obvious that, besides the top-tier stack, Intel didn't make any performance, power, or AI claims for the rest of its lineup, besides the flagship SKUs such as the X9 388H. AMD itself expects the reason behind this to be that Ryzen AI 400 will be leading the processing and graphics performance charts while retaining its strong efficiency lead.

AMD has some good points, and Intel also claimed some big numbers, but at the end of the day, all of us should just wait for reviews, which come out in a few days, to see how the two platforms stack up. Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" chips are looking very nice from the early claims and from what we'd tested on the showfloor, while AMD's Ryzen AI MAX is the standard for high-performance Halo SoCs, and its Ryzen AI 400 lineup should build upon the strong foundation already set by Ryzen AI 300. So keeping that in mind, we should expect a healthy dose of competition in the PC segment.

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