For those that have been very eager to hear about the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" performance on Linux, today’s the day! Last Thursday the MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Evo laptop arrived that is powered by the Core Ultra X7 358H. Here is a look at how that Intel Core Ultra X7 358H competes for performance and power efficiency against a wide range of other laptops on an up-to-date Linux software stack with around 300 benchmarks.

The Intel Core Ultra X7 358H features 16 cores between 4 P cores, 8 E cores, and 4 LPE cores. This 8 P + 4 E + 4 LPE core layout is the same as the flagship Core Ultra X9 388H but with the maximum turbo frequency reduced from 5.1GHz to 4.8GHz and similarly lower turbo and base frequencies for the E/LPE cores too. The Core Ultra X7 358H does maintain the same 18MB Smart Cache and 25 Watt base power rating as the 388H along with the 80 Watt Turbo Power.

The Intel Core Ultra X7 358H does have the Arc B390 Xe3 GPU like the Ultra X9 388H. With the Arc B390 with 12 Xe cores is a very interesting integrated graphics option. However, today’s article is looking solely at the CPU performance of Panther Lake on Linux. I am still working through some performance differences with Intel on the Arc B390 so will have up those integrated graphics benchmarks once sorting through those performance anomalies.

The Intel Core Ultra X7 358H is found in laptops starting out for around $1300 USD. Originally I pre-ordered the MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Evo laptop for being able to deliver Panther Lake Linux benchmarks. Intel though ultimately came through and sent over the same laptop for review at Phoronix last week. This is the sole Panther Lake device I am testing so far at Phoronix.

In my testing I was using an Ubuntu 26.04 daily ISO in being forward-looking toward that upcoming all-important Ubuntu Long Term Support release in April and for having all the up-to-date software components. The installation was smooth but at least for this MSI laptop model you will want to be on Linux 6.19+ as even Linux 6.18 didn’t have working WiFi or audio. But with Linux 6.19 it was in good shape besides still working through some Arc B390 graphics performance differences against expectations.

MSI did release a new test BIOS for this Prestige 14 D3M to improve Linux compatibility without detailing any of the changes. That is the BIOS version used for all of this testing. MSI allows the BIOS to be easily updated from a UEFI boot file or within the UEFI system setup area without needing to be within Windows, for those wondering.

Intel also detailed a temporary workaround for the MSI Panther Lake laptop if wanting to run in the performance mode for this laptop. That is only if opting for the "performance" mode rather than the default balanced profile. A separate follow-up article on Phoronix will be looking at the balanced vs. performance vs. power-savings modes for Panther Lake on the MSI Prestige 14, similar to my other platform profile benchmarks in the past.

On Ubuntu 26.04 with the Linux 6.19 kernel, the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H performance was in very good shape for both performance and power efficiency. On the CPU side it exceeded my expectations in both performance and power relative to prior generation Intel laptop processors as well as the AMD Strix Point competition. Let’s look at the much anticipated Intel Panther Lake Linux numbers.

The Intel Core Ultra X7 358H within the MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Evo laptop was tested against a range of other laptops on-hand at Phoronix, including:

• Core i7 1165G7 - Dell XPS 13 9310
• Core i7 1185G7 - Dell XPS 13 9310
• Core i7 1280P - MSI Prestige 14Evo
• Core i5 1334U - Framework 12
• Core Ultra 7 155H - Acer Swift 14
• Core Ultra 7 256V - Zenbook S14
• Core Ultra 7 258V - ThinkPad X1 Carbon G13
• Core Ultra X7 358H - MSI Prestige 14
• Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U - ThinkPad X13 G3
• Ryzen 7 7840U - Acer Swift SFE16-43
• Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U - ThinkPad P14s G4
• Ryzen AI 5 340 - HP OmniBook 5
• Ryzen AI 9 365 - Zenbook S16
• Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 - Zenbook S16

An extensive look on the Intel side from Tigerlake through Panther Lake. Plus the notable AMD Ryzen laptop options. Sadly, there are no Ryzen AI Max Strix Halo numbers for comparison. Due to freshly re-testing all the hardware each time and HP having requested the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 HP ZBook Ultra G1a review sample be returned after review, I am unable to provide any current Strix Halo Linux laptop performance numbers. I don’t recycle months-old data due to re-testing on the latest software such as with all the constant Linux kernel optimizations, on the graphics side the many RADV ray-tracing optimizations over the past several months, etc.

In a follow-up article will be an even larger look at the Intel Linux laptop performance evolution likely going back to Sandy Bridge or perhaps Nehalem relative to Panther Lake... The laptops in this article are just what I’ve had the time to re-test the past few weeks but more of those historical numbers coming for those interested. All laptops were tested under the Ubuntu 26.04 development snapshot. As mentioned there will be a Panther Lake performance vs. balanced vs. power saving profile comparison and other follow-up Panther Lake benchmarks coming too over the days ahead - with just having this Panther Lake laptop now less than one week.

Beyond looking at the raw performance, the CPU power consumption was monitored on a per-test basis via the PowerCap/RAPL interface for also comparing the CPU power efficiency between these different SoCs/laptops. Let’s get to the data and thanks to Intel for sending out this laptop review sample for Linux testing.