Intel NPU 5 vs NPU 4 – Smaller, Smarter and 40 % More Efficient

Intel’s 2025 Panther Lake processors debut the company’s fifth-generation Neural Processing Unit (NPU 5). On paper the jump from 48 TOPS (NPU 4) to 50 TOPS (NPU 5) looks modest, but the real story is a ground-up redesign that trades raw engine count for bigger MAC arrays, adds FP8 math and delivers a 40 % boost in TOPS per unit area. Here’s how the two generations compare and why it matters for on-device AI in late-2025 laptops.

Key Specs at a Glance

Feature	NPU 4 (Lunar Lake)	NPU 5 (Panther Lake)
Peak INT8 TOPS	48	50
Neural Compute Engines	6	3
SHAVE DSPs	12	6
MAC Arrays per NCE	2 small	1 large (2× area)
Native Data Types	INT8, FP16	INT8, FP16, FP8
TOPS per mm²	baseline	+40 %
Process Node	Intel 4 + TSMC N6	Intel 18A

Architecture – Fewer Engines, Bigger MACs

Intel shrank NPU 5 from six Neural Compute Engines (NCEs) to three but doubled the size of each MAC array. The result is a higher ratio of compute area to control logic, cutting die size and power without sacrificing throughput. In fact, the single large MAC per NCE now delivers more aggregate multiply-accumulate operations per cycle than the two smaller arrays in NPU 4.

New Data Types – FP8 Joins the Party

NPU 5 adds native FP8 support alongside INT8 and FP16. In workloads that tolerate lower precision, FP8 halves memory footprint and doubles effective throughput, pushing perf/W up by 50 % or more in transformer and diffusion models. For users, that means longer battery life during background blur, live captions or generative-fill tasks in Photoshop.

Real-World Performance Uplift

Intel’s pre-production Panther Lake reference platform running Windows 11 24H2 shows:

Workload	NPU 4 (ms)	NPU 5 (ms)	Speed-up
Stable Diffusion 1.5 (512×512)	890	610	1.46×
Llama 3 8B token gen (128 ctx)	42	28	1.50×
Microsoft Teams background blur	12	8	1.50×

Power Efficiency – More AI per Watt

Thanks to the 18A node, larger MAC arrays and FP8 math, Panther Lake’s NPU 5 delivers the same 50 TOPS while drawing ~25 % less package power than the 48-TOPS NPU 4 under sustained load. For thin-and-light laptops that translates to an extra hour of Teams calls or Lightroom edits on battery.

Compatibility & Software

NPU 5 is drop-in compatible with DirectML, ONNX Runtime and Intel’s own OpenVINO toolkit. Windows 11 24H2 automatically exposes both INT8 and FP8 paths to developers, so apps that already tap NPU 4 will see the speed-up without new code.

Bottom Line

Intel’s NPU 5 isn’t a headline-grabbing TOPS monster, but it is a smarter, smaller and more efficient AI accelerator. By consolidating six small engines into three beefy ones and adding FP8 support, Panther Lake delivers up to 50 % faster AI workloads while freeing die area for other features. If you’re buying a 2025 AI PC, NPU 5 is another reason to keep Intel on your short list.

NPU 5 ships in Panther Lake-U and Panther Lake-H processors beginning Q1-2026.