After a lengthy seven-week investigation, Intel believes it has the answer to why Core Ultra 200S processors arrived with a whimper rather than a bang. After boiling it down to five main components, the good news is that Team Blue has already fixed four of them, claiming “complete and intended functionality” for Arrow Lake-S CPUs once you’ve downloaded your latest BIOS and updated Windows 11.
Intel explains that the main reason Core Ultra 9 285K reviews all saw vastly different performance is because it didn’t give testers the right Windows Update package. While manufacturers usually tailor Performance & Power Management (PPM) to specific hardware, early Arrow Lake-S benchmarks were at the whim of the default settings. We noticed as much, actively switching to the High Performance power profile in our CyberpowerPC UK Infinity Z890 Pro and PCSpecialist Nebula Supreme R reviews to compensate for the 6-30% frame rate losses.
The lack of PPM had a domino effect that meant Intel Application Performance Optimiser (APO) couldn’t take effect. Not all games actively use APO, but the ones that do couldn’t benefit from high-level core/thread scheduling, seeing a further 2-14% drop. Intel states that both PPM and APO are resolved as of Windows 11 build 26100.2161 (KB5044384), but recommends Windows 11 build 26100.2314 (or newer) to be sure.
Diving deeper into the BIOS, Intel identified issues with what it dubs ‘VIP settings’. A collective term for PCIe Resizable Bar, APO, compute tile ring frequency, memory controller ratio, and more, the chipmaker says one or more of these features was misconfigured in reviewer setups, leading to a 2-14% performance impact. Depending on the affected setting, it caused as much as double the expected memory latency, fluctuating compute tile ring frequency, or no performance uplift for games. Thankfully, Z890-based motherboards already have a BIOS update ready and waiting to bring back the correct balance.
| Topic | Performance | Status |
|---|---|---|
| No PPM package | 6-30% loss | FIXED Windows 11 26100.2161 |
| No Intel APO | 2-14% loss | FIXED Windows 11 26100.2161 |
| BIOS errors | 2-14% loss | FIXED latest BIOS |
| EAC BSODs | System crash | FIXED EAC patch via game updates |
| BIOS tweaks | 1-9% gain | In-progress Due via BIOS in January 2025 |
It’s tough to blame Intel for Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issues when booting Easy Anti-Cheat games on an Arrow Lake-S CPU, as the root cause was a known issue between Windows 11 24H2 and the April 2024 (or older) Easy Anti-Cheat driver. Through collaboration, Epic Games has already fixed the problem, releasing an updated driver bundled as a game update. Stick it on download and you should be grand.
I haven’t heard particularly kind things about Intel microcode version 0x114 through the grapevine, with some suggesting it isn’t the performance fix you’ve been waiting for. Little did we know that it’s missing the elusive fifth element: optimisations. It’ll arrive in January 2025 and, along with Intel CSME Firmware Kit 19.0.0.1854v2.2, will be the signifier for the correct BIOS. Intel is just rigorously validating the firmware to ensure it’s up to scratch first, rather than risking yet another catastrophe.
This measure twice, cut once approach is now present in Intel’s “new practices, policies, and procedures.” I had heard of the shifting ethos following the eggshell dancing we saw around recent CPU degradation issues, and I’m glad to see it take effect, even if it should’ve been there from the beginning.
Still, credit where it’s due: we rarely see this level of candour from a tech company experiencing issues. We’ll soon see a whole lot more in Intel’s second paper, which will document a “full performance sweep of games and applications, issue-by-issue A/B analysis, and combinatory analyses.” I, for one, can’t wait.
