Smart Communications names Heidi Johnson chief product and technology officer as it sharpens AI governance for heavily regulated clients. Read...

The Public Safety Network project was an answer to first responders being let down by communications technology in previous disasters. Read...

Did you know the Super Bowl is just around the corner? January sure moved fast, what with society falling apart and all. Well, if you’re planning to watch the big game this year while the world burns outside, you might as well watch it on a proper screen—like TCL’s 65-inch 4K TV that’s on sale for $499.97 (was $699.99). That’s a lovely 29% off! View this Amazon deal For the price, the TCL T7 delivers exceptional visual quality with QLED technology at 4K resolution, which translates to rich and vibrant colors, vivid contrast, and an overall great viewing experience. The native 144Hz refresh rate ensures fluid responsiveness and smooth motion whether you’re watching sports, movies, or gaming. Indeed, it’s a solid option to pair with your Xbox or PlayStation console. As a smart TV, it runs on the Google TV platform. You’ll find content from various streaming apps in a single interface, and it comes with a remote with easy access to the most popular streaming services. You even can tap the microphone button to issue voice commands. This TV integrates with Google Home, Apple HomeKit, and Amazon Alexa, so you can also use the remote to command your other smart home gadgets. If you order today, you’ll be able to get the TCL T7 delivered with plenty of days to spare before the big game. Grab this 65-inch 4K TV for its lowest price yet and elevate your home media experience! Start watching sports in glorious 65-inch 4K without breaking the bankBuy now at Amazon Read...

Technology that had been installed to monitor land movement was triggered and work suspended just after 10.30am. Read...

Windows 11 is increasingly evolving from a classic operating system to an AI-centric platform. Microsoft is integrating Copilot not as a standalone application, but as a permanent system function. For private users, however, it is not so much the strategic orientation that is decisive as the concrete added value in everyday life. This is precisely where a conflict arises between genuinely helpful functions, technical overload, and limited user acceptance to date. We have already provided an overview of the topic of AI in Windows 11 and the new functions in a separate article. Getting started, visibility, and control in the system Copilot starts directly from Windows. On supported systems, the assistant opens using the key combination Windows + C or via the icon in the taskbar. Copilot can be activated or hidden in the settings under “Personalization” and “Taskbar.” New AI PCs and AI laptops also have a physical Copilot button on the keyboard. This button is only available on AI devices with the appropriate hardware. Classic Windows 11 computers do not have it. The button makes for access easier, but does not add any functional value compared to the keyboard shortcut. The button lowers the barrier to entry, but does not replace understanding or meaningful use. Michael Crider / Foundry Copilot as an everyday tool In everyday use, Copilot primarily assists with tasks that can be described in language. Content can be summarized, texts can be roughly formulated, and longer web pages can be reduced to key messages. Explanations of Windows settings or programs can also be provided quickly. The benefit arises when you use Copilot as preliminary work. Results need to be checked, adjusted, and put into context. Copilot does not replace research and your own evaluation. Analyze files without opening them Windows 11 integrates Copilot in several places in File Explorer. A new option allows you to transfer Office files directly to Microsoft 365 Copilot to obtain summaries or content analyses. However, you need a corresponding subscription to do this. There is a similar function in the right-click menu. Both look the same but work differently. It is precisely this dual integration that causes confusion. Users often do not recognize which Copilot is active. The benefits are real, but the operation remains confusing. Those who don’t know the difference will get different results than expected. Some practice is required here. Microsoft itself obviously doesn’t yet know exactly how and where AI should be integrated into the operating system. That’s why development is dynamic: New features are added, while others are dropped. Microsoft System-wide writing assistant A universal writing assistant is now available in more and more text input fields. It corrects grammar, adjusts style, and shortens texts. This can save a noticeable amount of time for short answers, comments or forms. However, this feature requires a Copilot PC with an integrated NPU, which means that many personal computers are not compatible. In addition, the suggestions are often very neutral and standardized. Without manual editing, the texts can therefore quickly appear interchangeable. Those interested should carefully examine the assistant’s capabilities, for example directly in Notepad. It should be noted that a subscription to Microsoft 365 or even Microsoft 365 Copilot is sometimes required. In such cases, the system will indicate this accordingly. Voice input and voice mode Copilot supports voice input and tests activation via voice command. This works well in quiet living environments. In multi-person households or in the evening, voice input remains impractical. Many users still prefer text input. Microsoft is responding to this with parallel text interaction. The vision of a talking PC does not fit into everyone’s everyday life. Foundry AI PCs, NPUs, and local processing AI PCs have a neural processing unit (NPU) that processes selected AI tasks locally. These include live subtitles, studio effects for cameras, and simple classifications. These functions are energy-efficient and do not require a cloud connection. However, many Copilot functions still rely on online services. For private users, the practical difference is therefore less than the marketing suggests. The NPU primarily improves battery life and local effects — but not automatically the quality of Copilot responses. Recall as an example of overambitious features Recall stores screen snapshots to find past content via voice. Recall remains optional and requires active consent, device encryption and Windows Hello login. In practice, the picture is mixed. The quality of the hits remains unreliable. Many users disable Recall for privacy reasons or because of its limited usefulness. Recall clearly shows that technical feasibility does not guarantee everyday value. Microsoft AI agents and new system architecture Windows 11 is currently testing AI agents that perform tasks independently in the background and display their progress directly in the taskbar. One example is a research agent that creates comprehensive evaluations and displays the current status transparently. For private users, this approach theoretically promises additional convenience. At the same time, however, skepticism is growing: Autonomous actions in the file system require a high degree of trust. Microsoft is addressing these concerns with isolated workspaces, explicit approvals, and clear handover mechanisms. Nevertheless, the technology remains a preview feature with correspondingly limited acceptance. Agent Launchers, MCP, and On-Device Registry Windows registers AI agents system-wide with Agent Launchers. These can be launched via Ask Copilot, the taskbar, or the search function. An on-device registry manages capabilities and access rights locally. The Model Context Protocol enables collaboration between agents and tools. For private users, this means more automation in the future, but also more complexity. More entry points increase the learning curve and the risk of overload. Ask Copilot as a replacement for search In new insider versions of Windows 11, Microsoft is testing replacing the classic search with “Ask Copilot.” Files, settings, and apps can then be found using natural language. This works reliably for general queries. For precise file paths or known names, the classic search is often faster. Many users switch depending on the situation. A complete replacement seems unrealistic in the short term. Microsoft Accessibility and side effects AI functions are also reaching classic system areas. The screen reader receives customizable output via natural language. Voice Access simplifies setup. These functions offer real added value, regardless of the AI hype. They show that AI is convincing when it solves specific problems. These functions are being rolled out gradually and are partly reserved for AI PCs with NPUs. Low usage despite maximum presence Despite massive integration, many users rarely use Copilot. Microsoft has already reduced its sales targets for AI. Many users feel that AI in the operating system is imposed on them and is not yet optimally integrated. Creative results are difficult to reproduce. Users often continue to use AI via browsers because they can work more specifically there. The physical Copilot button increases visibility but does not generate acceptance. Hardware constraints and acceptance issues A large proportion of existing PCs do not meet the requirements for AI functions in Windows 11. Many users feel that the switch is being forced upon them. AI notebooks cost significantly more. At the same time, the practical added value of AI functions remains limited. This explains the reluctance to switch, despite the expiry of support for Windows 10. Sam Singleton Practical recommendations for private users Use Copilot selectively: Summaries, short explanations, and text drafts can save you a lot of time. However, always check the results yourself and deactivate functions that do not offer you any added value. Windows 11 remains fully functional even without active AI use. The Copilot button on AI notebooks simply makes access easier — it does not oblige you to do anything. Windows 11 is increasingly evolving into an agent-enabled system. Further AI functions, greater automation, and higher visibility are foreseeable. For users, it is not the sheer number of functions that counts, but their reliability in everyday use. In the short term, Copilot remains a tool for selected scenarios. In the long term, it remains to be seen whether Microsoft will turn mere presence into actual relevance. Microsoft Copilot enhances Windows 11, but it does not replace independent thinking. The greatest benefit comes from conscious, selective use. Many features still seem experimental, some even overly ambitious. Private users would be well advised to view Copilot as an option rather than an obligation. This way, the ubiquitous AI becomes a tool that provides support at the right moment — and otherwise remains discreetly in the background. Read...

Sonos’s first new product since 2024’s Arc Ultra soundbar has finally arrived, but it’s not something you’ll ever find in Best Buy.  Slated to arrive “soon,” the Sonos Amp Multi is like a super-changed version of the Sonos Amp, a wireless device that lets you connect traditional home audio components like turntables, wired speakers, and other devices to your Sonos setup.  While the $800 Sonos Amp can only handle a single zone of audio, the 8-channel Amp Multi can juggle up to four zones, and it also boasts pro-level room calibration technology plus a 2U rack mount for installation in an A/V closet.  No question, the “bespoke” Amp Multi is a serious piece of hardware—so serious that it’s intended only for the professional installer market. Indeed, the usual “buy now” button on the Sonos website has been replaced by a “find an installer” button.  Sonos Even if the Sonos Amp Multi isn’t for you, the arrival of the new—and very much “audio-first” — device signals that Sonos may be back on track after 15 months of turmoil.  The last big hardware release for Sonos was in October 2024, when the Arc Ultra arrived. A follow-up to the Sonos Arc, the newer soundbar packs 14 drivers, 9.1.4 channels of audio, and a special ingredient dubbed Sound Motion, a component that allows the Arc Ultra to deliver impressive low-frequency performance without a separate subwoofer.  The Arc Ultra received warm reviews, in stark contrast to the drubbing Sonos endure following the disastrous reception to the revamped Sonos app in mid 2024, a debacle that left the company reeling and spurred the resignation of its longtime CEO Patrick Spense.  Riddled with bugs and bereft of such basic features as an editable music queue or support for local music sources, the redesigned Sonos app was greeted with near universal derision, with longtime Sonos users threatening to bail on the once-acclaimed wireless speaker platform.  At the same time, Sonos launched the Ace, and pair of wireless headphones that could connect directly to Sonos soundbars but lacked Wi-Fi support, a feature that many eager Sonos fans had expected to ship with the cans. Reviews were middling, and sales figures were said to be disappointing.  The sinking Sonos ship slowly began to right itself with the arrival of interim—and now permanent—CEO Tom Conrad, who oversaw the much needed revisions to the new Sonos app while reportedly shooting down what could have been yet another debacle for the company: a rumored $400 streaming video player that would have potentially seen Sonos jumping into an unfamilar and oversaturated market with a wildly overpriced device.  Instead, the Amp Multi shows Sonos returning to its roots as an audio-first wireless speaker company. Hopefully Sonos’s next product—made for everyday consumers, one would hope—will follow the same path.  This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart speakers. Read...

Got any Wemo smart products installed in your home? If so, you’d better get busy, because they’re not going to be smart for much longer.  Belkin, the consumer electronics company behind the Wemo brand, warned customers last summer that it was poised to kill cloud support for the majority of its Wemo smart devices, from smart plugs and light switches to crockpots and air purifiers.  The date Belkin set for switching off its Wemo cloud servers is January 31, 2026—this Saturday. When that date arrives, your Wemo devices will lose any functionality that relies on the cloud, and you won’t be able to control them remotely or via voice commands either.   So if you’re relying on any Wemo smart devices for your smart home and you haven’t already made preparations, it’s time to get cracking.   For a complete list of Wemo devices that are about to get dumb, you can check out Belkin’s official support page. More than two-dozen products are on the list, including smart space heaters, coffee makers, baby monitors, dimmer switches, and smart plugs.  In most cases, the only fix for Wemo devices on the shutdown list is to swap them out with other products. We’ve previously compiled a guide of suitable Wemo replacements, so now’s a good time to give it a gander.  Belkin has said it may offer “partial” refunds for any affected Wemo devices that are still under warranty on or after January 31, but you won’t be able to apply for a refund until after that date.    The good news is that some Wemo smart products can get a second lease on life, provided you’re comfortable with Apple’s HomeKit platform.  There are seven Wemo devices that can be configured to work with HomeKit, including:  Wemo Smart Light Switch 3-Way (SKU: WLS0403)  Wemo Smart Light Switch (SKU: WLS040)  Wemo HomeKit Bridge (SKU: F7C064)  Wemo Dimmer Light Switch (SKU: F7C059)  Wemo Mini Plugin Switch (SKU: F7C063)  Wemo Outdoor Plug (SKU: WSP090)  Wemo Mini Smart Plug (SKU: WSP080)  Nice, but here’s the catch: To use those Wemo devices with the Apple Home app, you’ll need their HomeKit setup codes, and you’ll need the Wemo app to retrieve them—and since the Wemo app is going dark on January 31, you’ll have to get those HomeKit codes before the deadline.   Beyond those seven HomeKit-compatible products, there are four Matter-enabled Wemo devices that work with Thread, and they’re exempt from the Wemo shutdown:  Wemo Smart Light Switch 3-Way (SKU: WLS0503)  Wemo Stage Smart Scene Controller (SKU: WSC010)  Wemo Smart Plug with Thread?(SKU: WSP100)  Wemo Smart Video Doorbell Camera (SKU: WDC010)  Those four devices will continue to work with any Matter controller app even after Belkin shuts off its Wemo servers.  Belkin’s move to shutter its Wemo brand and effectively exit the smart home market didn’t come as a big shock. The company had only released a handful of Wemo devices in the years following its 2018 acquisition by tech giant Foxconn.  “Over the last decade, since Belkin first launched Wemo in 2011, we’ve been committed to providing consumers with innovative, simple-to-use accessories for a seamless smart home experience,” Belkin said when it first announced the coming Wemo shutdown. “However, as technology evolves, we must focus our resources on different parts of the Belkin business.”     This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart lights. Read...

Experts say quantum technology and photonics were on the verge of allowing us to diagnose cancer earlier or even predict earthquakes sooner. Read...

The home secretary told Parliament she wants to make better use of technology - such as live facial recognition and AI. Read...

Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 platform, Panther Lake, and its champion, the Core Ultra X9 388H microprocessor, offer something unique: powerful, gaming-class 3D performance with battery life that’s almost unheard of in the laptop space. Intel positioned the Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) as a chip with the computational power of its Arrow Lake platform, with the low power consumption of the Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake). The chip maker also predicted that Panther Lake’s gaming performance is roughly equivalent to a laptop with an Nvidia GeForce 4050 laptop chip inside it. As I’ll show you, those are relatively fair claims. Instead of just a battery of tests, we’ll try to pull out the “story” of Panther Lake, demonstrating its strengths and weaknesses as we go. Let’s just hope you can buy one. Intel supplied this Lenovo laptop as an additional Panther Lake platform for testing the Core Ultra X9 388H. This photo has been edited to obscure personally identifiable information.Mark Hachman / Foundry Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 chip stands alone, for now In October, Intel originally positioned the Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) in one of three basic configurations, combining the new “Cougar Cove” P-core and the “Darkmont” E-core and Low Power E-cores. At the high end was what Intel referred to then as the “16 core 12Xe” configuration, with 4 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores, 12 Xe3 GPU cores, and 12 ray-tracing units. When it came time for Intel to announce the Panther Lake chip lineup, that configuration included its formal name, the Core Ultra X9 388H, with the “X9” prefix added to highlight the largest Xe3 configuration. Intel then let reviewers benchmark the Core Ultra Series 3 chip during CES, but only using games. It was our first indication that Panther Lake could be something special. Intel prevented reviewers from testing CPU-specific benchmarks, however, probably because the number of cores inside the highest-end Panther Lake chip (16) are less than those inside the rival Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme chip (18), meaning that Intel would likely lose to the Snapdragon on paper in multi-threaded CPU-specific benchmarks. The third contender will be the AMD Ryzen AI 400, an upgrade to the excellent Ryzen AI 300, which AMD debuted last year. The Ryzen AI 400 includes just 12 cores, but runs them at a maximum clock speed of 5.2GHz — the fastest speed of all three chips. But laptops with either the Ryzen AI 400 or Snapdragon X2 Elite aren’t yet available. Mark Hachman / Foundry CPUs don’t suck any more Both Intel’s Core Ultra Series 1 (Meteor Lake) and Core Ultra 2 (Lunar Lake) were surprisingly average in CPU performance, both in single-core and multi-core tasks. (CPU-specific applications include web browsing, apps like Excel, compiling software, some games, and decompressing files.) AMD’s Ryzen and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon used to hold the advantage. No longer — well, at least compared against its older rivals. With Panther Lake, Intel has regained its leadership in CPU computations. Intel provided us an Asus ZenBook Duo (UX8407A) with an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H chip inside as a launch laptop for the Panther Lake platform. It was a slightly odd choice; the ZenBook Duo is a dual-screen laptop, with a gaming-class 99 watt-hour battery, which drastically inflated the battery life. Intel also offered a prototype Lenovo laptop, which we used as a reality check for the estimated battery life and additional benchmarks. I left the ZenBook Duo in “clamshell” mode, only using one of its 2K screens to render data to produce results I felt confident in comparing to other platforms. I started using the Cinebench 2024 and Geekbench synthetic CPU tests. Mark Hachman / Foundry To address Intel’s claim that Panther Lake offers the CPU performance of the mobile Arrow Lake chip: yes, that’s true. Intel launched the Core 285H chip last year, and in our review of the Core 285H, I found that the Cinebench 2024 score was 1,012 (multithreaded) and 128 (single-threaded), just a hair under Panther Lake’s performance. In Geekbench (measured below), the older 285H produced a score of 16,755, again slightly less than Panther Lake’s Core Ultra X9 388H. But if you’re a Windows fanatic like we are, you might be disappointed by the Core Ultra X9 388H’s showing. Referring to the review of the Apple M5 MacBook Pro, our colleagues at Macworld report that the MacBook M4 Pro reported a score of 1,010 in Cinebench 2024 and 14,763 in Geekbench 6. But the MacBook M5 Pro scored 1,126 in Cinebench 2024 and 18,013 in Geekbench 6, besting Intel’s current mainstream laptop chip. Mark Hachman / Foundry Perhaps an upcoming HX version can do better? Battery life is massive! But so is the battery Intel has claimed that Core Ultra 3 laptops will have up to 27 hours of battery life. That’s true — but, as is often the case, it depends. The two screens of the ZenBook Duo suck more power than a single display. However, Asus installed a 99Wh battery inside. That’s a gaming-class battery, and the largest capacity allowed on a plane by FAA rules. In this case, it’s like bolting a self-powered fuel truck to a sedan. So yes, the battery life was insane: about 22 hours on the ZenBook Duo running on a single screen and 25 to 28 hours (1,704 minutes) on the Lenovo prototype laptop that we used in early tests at CES. Those tests were performed by looping a 4K video until the battery expired. When asked to do a bit more work (simulating office work via the Procyon Office benchmark) battery life dropped to “just” under 14 hours on the ZenBook Duo — still basically the best results we’ve ever seen. We’ll break down the battery life a bit more on the Asus ZenBook Duo in our upcoming, dedicated review. The Asus ZenBook Duo includes two screens, but one can be covered up with the keyboard (and switched off) to emulate a clamshell laptop.Foundry / Mark Hachman Again, Intel wants us to believe that the Core Ultra has the performance of its “Arrow Lake” chips with the power draw of its Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake) chips. We can check that, sort of, by tracking the power consumption of a Lunar Lake and a Panther Lake notebook as they undergo a benchmark. In idle, the Core Ultra 3 chip draws about five watts, but can drop down under a watt. Lunar Lake averages about three watts or less in idle. It’s not apples to apples, though. Intel used TSMC’s N3 process technology to manufacture the CPU tile in the Series 2 Lunar Lake chip, while Panther Lake uses Intel 18A, with some tiles split between the two companies. In this case, Intel’s older Lunar Lake is a 17W TDP chip, while Panther Lake is 25W — more power to the chip typically means better performance and worse battery life, but the larger battery and Intel’s architecture seem to offset this. Here’s a power graph showing the two chips in idle, then running a benchmark, then dropping down into idle once again. This graph just measures the power going into the CPU package, not the entire laptop. That power could vary significantly, and is best left to the battery-life comparisons you’ll find in our individual laptop reviews. Still, Panther Lake is throwing a lot more power and performance at the benchmark, and this graph demonstrates that if a Lunar Lake and a Panther Lake laptop contained the same battery capacity, the older Lunar Lake laptop could win. This power graph tracks how the laptop moves from an idle state to opening Cinebench 2023, running the multithreaded benchmark, and then giving it some time to return to an idle state.Mark Hachman / Foundry Still, if Intel convinces laptop makers to add larger batteries to Panther Lake laptops, though, look out. Laptop battery life numbers could explode upwards! Performance still drops while on battery One of the interesting things about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips is that they run at full power all the time. Intel’s Core Ultra chips do not, clocking down to lower power consumption, extending battery life. I run all of our benchmarks on wall power, battery power, and at Windows’ maximum allowable settings, just to see how performance varies in different user scenarios. As you’ll notice in our Cinebench 2024 benchmarks, the single-threaded performance usually associated with OS tasks remains unchanged between wall power and battery power, keeping Windows as responsive in both scenarios. But look here: Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 chips seem to maintain their performance on battery much better than Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 or Series 1. We’re using three real-world benchmarks to test this. First, here is Procyon Office, which performs various tasks in Microsoft Office / 365. Performance drops by about 20 percent on battery. Mark Hachman / Foundry However, on our custom real-world Handbrake test, where the laptop is asked to transcode the open-source Tears of Steel movie, performance dropped by just three percent between wall power and battery. Here, you can see how our test Panther Lake laptop fared compared to the competition. This is a custom test, different than the one we run in as part of our laptop reviews. I also made sure to download an Arm-specific version of the app, but Qualcomm’s chip fared exceptionally badly here. It usually performs quite well. Foundry / Mark Hachman Since we’re looking at real-world benchmarks, we can see that Intel’s Core Ultra 300 / Panther Lake fares well in PugetBench’s Photoshop test. The test uses the shipping version of Photoshop. Here, performance dropped just about three percent on my tests when I unplugged the laptop. Keep in mind that CPU-specific tests are one of Snapdragon’s strengths. And with the Snapdragon X2 Elite generating exceptional CPU performance — preliminary numbers crush Panther Lake, and the Elite X1 still ranks highly — this might be an area where Qualcomm catches up. This race ain’t over. Mark Hachman / Foundry Unfortunately, Puget Systems’ PugetBench benchmark hadn’t caught up to the version of Adobe Premiere Pro (26.0) that Adobe makes available for download, so I was unable to test that application. Panther Lake’s GPU performance is incredible Remember, Intel’s flagship Panther Lake chip is the Core Ultra X9 388H–this is different. The Core 9 is now the Core X9, which means the GPU has 12 Xe3 cores. Essentially, the “X” means that you’re getting the best Intel has to offer in terms of graphics. What does this mean? For years, integrated graphics has been able to play games: older, 2D sprite-based games, and some older 3D games at lower settings. They ran. And that was fine. With Panther Lake, we’re navigating a transition into integrated graphics performing almost as well as gaming-class discrete graphics — and when you add AI upscaling and frame generation to the mix, recent top-tier titles are near your grasp. Some gamers refer to those as “fake” frames, which is why it’s helpful to look first at both traditional, non-accelerated tests. Here, we use UL’s 3DMark, specifically the Time Spy and Steel Nomad Lite benchmarks. Mark Hachman / Foundry A terrific increase in gaming performance This was one of the big stories of CES 2026: Intel’s claims that Panther Lake offered the power of a gaming laptop with a discrete Nvidia GeForce 4050 GPU, but inside an integrated package. This, for me, was the eye-opening moment. A year or so ago, I was testing Intel’s Core Ultra 1 (Meteor Lake) and Core Ultra 2 (Lunar Lake) with custom runs of games like Cyberpunk: 2077 at Low settings, which we show below. Mark Hachman / Foundry But those tests prompted me to “graduate” Panther Lake into our gaming benchmarks, too, with the settings that traditionally more powerful laptops now use. Even using our aggressive gaming settings, a game like Shadow of the Tomb Raider reaches playable frame rates. (Skip down to find these results.) Yes, it absolutely is an older game, dating from 2018. Yet Shadow was a top-tier AAA title, and integrated graphics has caught up. And that’s just pure, unadulterated, farm-to-table frames, too. Don’t get too excited, though. Metro: Exodus was released in 2019, but its 4A Engine remains out of reach for Panther Lake. On our test laptop, the game averages 24 frames per second when run at 1080p on the Highest setting — 35 fps if Windows’ performance settings are cranked to their maximum. AI frames make an enormous difference, if they’re supported It feels very strange to test Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 chip using dialed-down benchmarks centered around 1080p gaming at Low settings — often a hint for a PC gamer that it’s time for a new machine or card. But the Core Ultra Series 3 hit the 60 fps threshold that signaled a “playable” game even with just rendered frames. Panther Lake’s GPU also includes two different methods of artificially increasing frame rate — 2X upscaling, or rendering a frame using a lower resolution and then increasing the resolution to the desired level — and XeSS 3, which can interpolate three additional frames using AI. Naysayers call these “fake frames,” but Panther Lake allows for purists and more aggressive gamers alike to find what they want. Our test laptop shipped with Intel Graphics Software, a custom Intel app that allows you to control various aspects of your display and graphics — including forcing on XeSS frame generation, or AI-generated frames that can inject up to four interpolated frames for every frame the GPU renders. That’s big — or is it? What I discovered is that, yes, turning on frame generation can make an enormous difference. Simply turning on upscaling and XeSS 3 increased the framerate to a whopping 140 frames per second! Dialing up the Windows power slider tacked on a few additional frames. Both are included in the “Max” result at the top of the chart. Mark Hachman / Foundry The effects seem to differ depending upon the image quality, though. When running Cyberpunk on our traditional 1080p Ultra settings, frame rates jumped from 52 to 92. Pushing the Windows slider to maximum performance gave me frame rates of 143 fps. The difference, though, is that Cyberpunk specifically supports XeSS modes. Metro: Exodus does not — and “forcing” XeSS on using the Intel Graphics Software app didn’t work. Modern games seem more forgiving of older hardware, and support for AI frame generation certainly makes those games playable by modern laptops. Still, I wonder if there will be a tier of AAA games like Metro: powerful enough that Panther Lake laptops won’t be able to run them, but old enough that they won’t be able to support the frame generation that would otherwise bridge the gap. I tried a handful of other games. Total War: Warhammer 3 crashed when running the “battle” benchmark, but its campaign map benchmark played back at 44 frames per second at 1080p High settings. The 2014 Thief remake produced a even 60 fps when played at 1080p at the Highest settings. Neither supported XeSS or any frame generation. Forza Horizon 6 generated 62 fps on 1080p Ultra settings with frame generation forced on, but without explicit support for it. Can Panther Lake compete with a 4050 laptop? This was the most provocative claim that Intel made about Panther Lake at CES, right before we had a chance to test out the chip on a prototype Lenovo laptop. Using purely rendered frames, it falls a bit short. When frame generation is included, it keeps up. Would a gamer with a desktop PC running a GeForce RTX 5090 turn off AI frame generation? Possibly. I think that most enthusiasts, already feeling the pinch of skyrocketing RAM, SSD, and GPU prices, will turn on frame generation without much thought. Again, here’s the Core Ultra X9 388H running Shadow of the Tomb Raider, without frame generation, facing off against a number of existing, but older gaming laptops. Foundry / Mark Hachman And here is the Core Ultra X9 388H running Cyberpunk 2077 with frame generation enabled. This feels like a scene from an 1980s TV show, where Voltron finally pulls out his blazing sword or K.I.T.T. goes into turbo mode. The episode would be a lot simpler if both had happened from the get-go. Basically, setting aside the scorn some have for AI and “fake frames,” AI frame generation is the “win” button here. Foundry / Mark Hachman AMD’s Ryzen AI Max is another option AMD tried to work the refs (us) harder than Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti complaining about personal fouls during a halftime interview. The company claims that we should be comparing Intel’s Panther Lake to AMD’s Ryzen AI 400 chips as well as its Ryzen AI Max processor instead. To that, we say, ship us one! We’re happy to review the Ryzen AI 400 when laptops finally are available. As for the Ryzen AI Max, well — we’ve reviewed it inside a (Framework) Desktop, and we’ve seen it in an HP ZBook Ultra G1a laptop, too. As our review benchmarks show, the Ryzen AI Max outperforms the Core Ultra X9 388H handily, though we’d probably put it in a tier that Intel’s eventual HX gaming processors will eventually compete against, rather than a power-sipping laptop chip. AI is less important than before But the Ryzen AI Max does have a point, so to speak. If people do want to run private LLMs locally, the Ryzen AI Max (Strix Halo) does provide gobs of VRAM necessary for such LLMs to run. An AMD driver allowed the Framework Desktop to assign 96GB for running LLMs. Our Asus ZenBook Duo review unit, which has an Ultra X9 388H and 32GB of RAM, supplied 18GB of VRAM for games and AI applications. That includes an NPU that can provide 50 TOPS, or 122 total TOPS with the GPU roped in. And let’s face it — AI has struggled on the PC, leaving us wondering a bit if the early emphasis on the NPU was worthwhile. What we do know is that the graphics chip is the most powerful AI processor. UL provides several benchmarks; I’ve ditched the abstract “Vision” benchmark in favor of the Procyon image-generation (AI art) benchmark. (The test is a work in progress, excluding Arm and providing an odd implementation for AMD’s Ryzen processor.) But UL’s test can generally run on either the NPU or the GPU, with some exceptions. Basically, this test reflects the score UL assigns to the process. In the real world, it shows that the ZenBook Duo with a Core Ultra 3 chip inside creates a 512×512 image once every 4.5 seconds using the GPU, while our test laptop with Intel’s Core Ultra 2 chip inside creates the same image once every nine seconds. But the Ultra X9 388H’s NPU performance suffers, and the AMD’s Ryzen AI NPU outperforms it, too. Mark Hachman / Foundry The same goes for running UL’s LLM benchmark. Originally, this test was one of the few that evaluated the NPU, and that was useful. But as Procyon begins adding support for the GPU, it does make you wonder why we’re using an NPU when a more powerful alternative is right there. Procyon’s test loads and runs several models, then provides a series of prompts and generates a score. Some tests simply don’t run on some processors (Arm, again) and only run on a couple of the others. Some tests will only run on the NPU. This test is really best to compare the three generations of Intel Core Ultra processors. Again, the test doesn’t do a great job in describing real-world results. In this case, the plugged-in Core Ultra 3 system running the LLama 3.1 (8 billion parameters) on the NPU generated about 20 tokens per second, which would appear on your screen at about four characters per token per second–a comfortable reading speed for me. Using the GPU under the Windows balanced settings, the token output was about 25 tokens per second for the same model. Running Llama 2 (13 billion parameters), the token output was between 13 to 15 tokens per second, which might be a little slow. Foundry / Mark Hachman I considered noodling around with Intel’s AI Playground, but the app stalled out when preparing the llamaCPP-GGUF backend, so I abandoned the project. 2026 will be an interesting year I honestly thought that 2025’s crop of laptop processors were the best ever — you could buy a laptop whose processors were made by either AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm and go away happy. But 2026 looks like it could be even better. Remember, though, that Intel is first out of the gate with this new generation of chips. AMD will eventually answer with the Ryzen AI 400, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is waiting in the wings. Given that Intel traditionally commands about 80 percent of the notebook PC processor market, an early jump could be a powerful advantage, especially with only older chips to compare it to. But we’re not done yet! Read...