Rumors are already starting to filter in about the next chip series coming from Intel, known as the Nova Lake series, and it’s barely two weeks into the first month of the year. Intel just announced its Panther Lake chip series, the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips, at CES 2026 back on January 6. In other words, devices powered by the company’s newest chips haven’t even hit the market, and details are starting to come in about the next generation.
Among other things, the rumor states that Intel’s Nova Lake chips will be built on Xe3P. The rumors come from Raichu on X, via The Guru of 3D and ExtremeTech . While the details about Nova Lake utilizing Intel’s Xe3P tech are nothing to scoff at, it’s the other information provided by Raichu that’s more intriguing, as it’s centered around the improvements that these chips are going to provide to users.
Intel Nova Lake iGPUs to boost performance by up to 25%
Although rumors should always be taken with a small grain of salt until confirmed, the rumor about Intel’s next chip series is exciting for users. According to the rumor, the iGPUs inside the Nova Lake chips will see anywhere from a 20% – 25% performance boost over the iGPUs in the Panther Lake chips. Panther Lake already delivers a performance boost of up to 50% over the previous generation. That’s going to make a huge difference for anyone using Intel chips running on the Xe2 architecture.
This could prove to be a really good thing for gaming . While it’s still always going to be considerably better to have a discrete GPU for gaming, improvements to the integrated GPU are never going to be a bad thing. Realistically, if you’re getting something like a laptop that will have this tech in it, and you’re looking to game with it, you’re probably going to get something with a dedicated graphics card. However, with increased prices for gaming laptops highly likely, better integrated graphics might be a nice compromise for some consumers.
