In case you didn’t know, Intel has fallen on hard times. But they are taking steps in the right direction. They recently made a major announcement at CES 2026, unveiling their new Panther Lake chip for laptops.
Our sister publication, PCWorld, got its hands on an Asus ZenBook Duo equipped with a Core Ultra X9 388H Panther Lake chip and ran it through several benchmarks. The results are encouraging for Windows users. But this is Macworld, and we’re interested in how Intel’s chip stacks up against Apple’s M-series. Below is a table of PCWorld’s results pitted against Apple’s entry-level M-series chip family. Take your time and click through the charts.
Intel Core Ultra X9 388H Panther Lake vs. Apple M-series
Results are scores. Higher scores/longer streaks are better.
While the 388H is faster than the M4 currently in the MacBook Air, it is outperformed by the entry-level M5 in the MacBook Pro — and that M5 is coming to the MacBook Air any week. The 388H’s multi-core performance is only slightly behind the M5, but the difference is more notable when you look at single-core performance, where the M5 and M4 have a noticeable lead and even the M3 beats the 388H.
The 388H beats the M5 in the Geekbench Compute test, which measures GPU performance. However, this test is done using OpenCL, a standard framework popular on Windows computers, although it is an open standard and can be run on macOS. For optimal Mac performance, Apple recommends using its Metal framework, and the M4 and M5 Geekbench Compute Metal scores are 57082 and 76963, respectively. Take it for what it’s worth.
Aside from performance, there’s power consumption to consider, and comparing the 388H to the M5 is a bit more difficult. The Intel chip has 25W, while the M5 has 15W. The Asus ZenBook Duo that PCWorld tested has a 99 watt-hour battery, while the M5 MacBook Pro’s battery is rated at 72.4 watt-hours. PCWorld’s test net is about 22 hours on the ZenBook Duo running on one screen, which is much better than the MacBook Air, which lasted about 18 hours, but within the expected range for a larger battery. In addition, PCWorld notes that performance has dropped roughly 20 percent when running on battery power.
To learn more about Panther Lake, read PCWorld’s article. But one thing is certain from the results: Apple’s decision to go with its own silicon was the right one. There is no looking back.