Chip stock Intel (INTC) promised quite a bit going into the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) event in Las Vegas, and on several fronts, it seems to have delivered. The Core Ultra Series 3 processor got its official reveal, and brought some downright dazzling new propositions with it. The shareholders, meanwhile, were sufficiently dazzled to put some extra juice in Intel’s share price, up nearly 1.5% in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
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Computers putting one of the new chips—also named Panther Lake—to work can expect some impressive gains in function. New reports say that the processors, properly integrated into complete systems, can offer battery life of up to 27 hours. Moreover, gamers will be pleased to note Panther Lake chips can offer a 70% boost in performance, and a 60% boost in “multitasking performance,” reports note.
This is due in large part to incredibly granular control of power consumption, and the ability to deliver power from the chip’s back. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan noted, “Over the past year, our teams have been pushing the boundaries of architecture and manufacturing. I am pleased to announce that we have met our commitment to deliver the first 18A products by the end of 2025. In fact, we have delivered beyond expectations and are now in the midst of ramping up production of all three Core Ultra Series 3 packages.”
New Graphics Driver
Meanwhile, Intel is getting a bit of an assist from Redox OS, an operating system written in Rust that recently started development on a native Intel graphics driver. Reports note that the new driver is designed as “…an alternative to the current generic and unaccelerated BIOS VESA / UEFI GOP display handling….”
Redox is also set to bring in a set of new read-only application programming interfaces (APIs) to help simplify the graphics driver concept. This is good news, and should also help Intel make a few more sales to Redox users once a key issue of graphics function gets righted around.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on six Buys, 19 Holds and six Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 96.75% rally in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $39 per share implies 2.88% downside risk.
