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CES 2026 Laptops: Intel Panther Lake and Snapdragon X2 Lead, With Prices Pressured by Memory Squeeze

Soaring component costs could limit high‑capacity configurations at launch.

Overview

  • Intel plans to launch Core Ultra 300 “Panther Lake” at CES, touting up to 12 Xe3 graphics cores and as much as 50% better integrated GPU performance versus Lunar Lake.
  • Qualcomm-powered Windows on Arm notebooks are expected on the show floor, including Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme designs with 18 CPU cores, an X2‑90 integrated GPU, and 228 GB/s memory bandwidth.
  • PCWorld reports a Qualcomm reference design hit 1,967 in Cinebench 2024 multi‑core, a preliminary result that may not reflect retail laptops.
  • AMD has not formally detailed Gorgon Point; reporting based on leaks suggests a modest Ryzen AI 400 refresh of Strix Point with incremental performance and NPU updates.
  • AI data‑center demand is pushing up RAM and SSD prices, likely raising laptop costs, restricting 64GB RAM and >1TB storage options, and keeping final pricing unclear until closer to February–June ship windows.