Panther Lake iGPU Benchmarks Show Major Gains Over AMD Rivals

Panther Lake performance analysis highlights significant gains across demanding ray-traced workloads compared with competing integrated GPU solutions.

Hardware by Tanvir Kabbo on Jan 20, 2026

Integrated graphics performance is still changing quickly, and the most recent in-depth look at Panther Lake illustrates how far mobile GPU technology has come. The following discussion looks at how Panther Lake stacks up against AMD's Strix Point and Strix Halo in a series of tough ray-traced benchmarks.

Tests show how well the game runs, how well it scales, how well it generates frames using machine learning, and how much power it needs to run.

Panther Lake, iGPU Benchmarks, Major Gains Over AMD Rivals, NoobFeed

Cyberpunk 2077: A Harsh but Revealing Test

Cyberpunk 2077 is now a standard for testing GPUs. This arrangement is similar to ultra settings, with ray-traced reflections and ray-traced sun shadows turned on and only a few changes made to post-processing. The game starts out in native 1080p, with no upscaling.

Panther Lake's frame rate is 29.05 fps, but it goes below and above 30 frames per second at different points in the movie. Strix Point handles 54% of that traffic, while the bigger Strix Halo is 24% ahead of Panther Lake. The AMD CPUs utilized for the benchmark were set to run at 65W, which is about the same as the Panther Lake CPUs, which ran at 58–64W.

When we use XeSS 2x2 upscaling, Panther Lake's performance almost doubles, going up to about 55.96 fps. Strix Point goes up to 32.5 fps, which is still only 58% of Panther Lake, whereas Strix Halo is around 23.7% quicker than Panther Lake. These figures seem to be the reason for headlines that say AMD is going to have a "blood bath," especially since Gorgon Point, which is basically an enhanced version of Strix Point, won't scale up much beyond these numbers.

Frame generation raises Panther Lake's frame rate to 96.6 fps. The frame-gen quality held up well when looked at closely, and the results are great for a mobile GPU. Strix Point doesn't get much better with frame generation, and Strix Halo hits the 120fps VSYNC limit, which makes its performance delta less useful.

Scaling from native to XeSS balance (540p internal) gives Panther Lake a 92.6% boost. Adding frame generation gives it a 232.5% boost over native and a 73% boost over balance mode alone. These results show that super resolution and frame generation based on machine learning give a big edge that AMD's DP4A-based XeSS or FSR 3 can't match when it comes to image quality.

Panther Lake, iGPU Benchmarks, Major Gains Over AMD Rivals, NoobFeed

Doom: The Dark Ages at Ultra Settings

Doom: The Dark Ages has a visual option that works on handheld devices, but the tests here are much harder: 1080p native, high settings, and full ray tracing. Panther Lake gets an average of 33.3 fps, even though the conditions are so bad. Strix Point gets 16.34 fps, which is less than half of what it should be getting, but Strix Halo is 30% faster than Panther Lake.

These results are especially interesting because we didn't utilize any upscaling for this game. Ray-tracing acceleration is going to be very important in the future, and this benchmark shows that Panther Lake's RT hardware can handle a full native load without any problems. The strong native baseline is promising for customers who want to use upscaling or frame generation later.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: A Three-Segment Benchmark

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an older game, but it has a detailed in-engine test with three separate scenarios that work differently with different GPU hardware. All tests are done at 1080p with ultra settings, which include ultra ray-traced shadows.

Segment One

Panther Lake starts at 42.6 frames per second, whereas Strix Point is just 57% as fast. Strix Halo is 59% ahead of Panther Lake, which is a big difference. Because of its intro-style atmosphere, this part often acts differently.

Segment Two

The second part is more like real gameplay, with thick jungle scenery making up most of the game. Panther Lake gets 39.6 fps, which is roughly twice as fast as Strix Point. Strix Halo is 32% faster, which is a more anticipated pattern.

Segment Three

In the last part, Panther Lake gets 37 fps, with Strix Point getting 56% of that and Strix Halo getting 41% more. These three parts work together to provide a clear trend in performance: Panther Lake's throughput in intensive RT workloads is always about double that of Strix Point's, but Strix Halo stays ahead since its GPU footprint is much greater.

Panther Lake, iGPU Benchmarks, Major Gains Over AMD Rivals, NoobFeed

Power Usage and Real-World Considerations

We tested all AMD processors at 65W. Even with the full 65W budget, Strix Point doesn't really benefit much beyond ~30W. Strix Halo can go up to around 120W, however beyond about 80W, the returns start to drop down quickly. We don't know what Panther Lake's operating ranges are across multiple devices, but early signs point to it performing effectively even at low wattage levels.

The biggest benefit comes when you utilize it with batteries. As long as the overall system power stays below 100W, integrated graphics like Panther Lake should be able to run at full speed without being connected to anything. Discrete GPUs are unable to: We saw that mobile GPUs like the RTX 5090 mobile used about 240W, which is just too much for any battery. This caused huge power-limited throttling.

Panther Lake's efficiency might be a big plus for mobile consumers, especially those who use handheld gaming gadgets. The Luna Lake technology from the last generation already worked great at 30W in portable form factors, and Panther Lake looks like it will make handhelds even better.

Future Handheld Applications

Intel has announced plans for a standard for its mobile CPUs that focuses on portable devices. The list of partners includes even a significant US-based platform holder. Panther Lake's performance and efficiency demonstrate that we can expect big improvements in the portable sector.

Panther Lake is a great choice for next-generation portable gaming devices since it has machine-learning super resolution, fast frame generation, and excellent ray-tracing acceleration.

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