The chiplet-based approach allows Intel to mix-and-match these tiles to offer three distinct iterations of Panther Lake: the 16-core CPU and the 12-core GPU, the 16-core CPU and the 4-core GPU, and the 8-core CPU and the 4-core GPU. Versions of these chips with some CPU and GPU cores switched off fill out the rest of the Core Ultra Series 3 lineup.

Intel is making big performance claims about the highest-end Core Ultra Series 3 processors: up to 60 percent faster multi-core CPU performance compared to the outgoing Core Ultra 200V chips, and up to 77 percent faster integrated GPU performance. Intel also says a “Lenovo IdeaPad reference design” using a Core Ultra X9 388H was able to stream Netflix at 1080p for 27.1 hours, though how battery life shakes out in real-world laptops is going to vary widely based on other specs and settings.

All Panther Lake chips will also include the same neural processing unit (NPU), capable of up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This puts it well above the 40 TOPS requirement for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC label, if a bit short of the 60 TOPS that AMD is claiming for its Ryzen AI 400 series and the 80 TOPS that Qualcomm says its Snapdragon X2 chips are capable of. Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, and up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports round out the most important connectivity features.

It remains to be seen whether Core Ultra Series 3 chips are a turning point for Intel’s fortunes or a temporary rebound in between years of missed deadlines (Panther Lake is a month later than Intel said it would be in October, though by its recent standards that isn’t bad). But their launch later this month suggests that the company’s 18A facilities are up and running, opening the door to the kind of third-party chip manufacturing that former CEO Pat Gelsinger began pursuing nearly five years ago.

The post Intel launches Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, made using its long-awaited 18A process appeared first on MASSIVE News.

Framework publishes a graphic to show you which ports do what; if you’re looking at the laptop from the front, ports 1 and 3 are on the back, and ports 2 and 4 are toward the front. Generally, ports 1 and 3 are the “better” ones, supporting full USB4 speeds instead of USB 3.2 and DisplayPort 2.0 instead of 1.4. But USB-A modules should go in ports 2 or 4 because they’ll consume extra power in bays 1 and 3. All four do support display output, though, which isn’t the case for the Ryzen 7040 Framework board, and all four continue to support USB-C charging.

The situation has improved from the 7040 version of the Framework board, where not all of the ports could do any kind of display output. But it still somewhat complicates the laptop’s customizability story relative to the Intel versions, where any expansion card can go into any port.

I will also say that this iteration of the Framework laptop hasn’t been perfectly stable for me. The problems are intermittent but persistent, despite using the latest BIOS version (3.03 as of this writing) and driver package available from Framework. I had a couple of total-system freezes/crashes, occasional problems waking from sleep, and sporadic rendering glitches in Microsoft Edge. These weren’t problems I’ve had with the other Ryzen AI laptops I’ve used so far or with the Ryzen 7040 version of the Framework 13. They also persisted across two separate clean installs of Windows.

It’s possible/probable that some combination of firmware and driver updates can iron out these problems, and they generally didn’t prevent me from using the laptop the way I wanted to use it, but I thought it was worth mentioning since my experience with new Framework boards has usually been a bit better than this.

The post Review: Ryzen AI CPU makes this the fastest the Framework Laptop 13 has ever been appeared first on MASSIVE News.