Fixing already sold processors seems to be becoming a routine for Intel. Recently, the company “fixed” Raptor Lake, and now it’s the turn for Core Ultra 200S.
Intel announced the first wave of updates to address performance issues in gaming for the new Arrow Lake desktop processors. Intel claims that the updates available today will significantly improve performance and restore full functionality to the Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake processors.
The update from Intel came after many reviews of the Core Ultra 200S, which revealed very varied gaming performance, reported by different media. These results, in the vast majority, did not match Intel’s own performance tests. As a result, the Arrow Lake processors were poorly received by the market.
The fix includes both a motherboard BIOS patch and a Windows update. Intel advises its customers to update the BIOS to the latest version from the motherboard supplier and to update Windows 11 to build 26100.2314 or newer.
In January, Intel will release the final component—a new version of the BIOS that will provide additional performance, even more than promised. This enhancement is designed post-launch. At CES 2025, Intel will publish a full analysis of the issues and new tests reflecting performance with all changes.
Currently, Intel has identified five main causes, four of which have already been resolved in today’s updates:
- Missing Performance & Power Management (PPM) package.
- Intel Application Performance Optimizer (APO) unable to function
- BSOD when attempting to run games using the Easy Anti-Cheat service
- Performance settings incorrectly configured in early BIOS
- New BIOS performance optimization
The Performance & Power Management (PPM) package determines how Windows power modes control processor behavior. PPM is usually delivered through the chipset driver via Windows Update. Intel says the absence or malfunction of PPM affects numerous aspects of performance and can reduce performance by 6–30%. Intel reports that it incorrectly scheduled the availability of this update for users and retail, but not for reviewers. The correct PPM added in Windows 11 build 26100.2161 (KB5044384) is available in Windows Update since November.
Intel’s Application Performance Optimizer (APO) boosts the performance of several games. This utility is now automatically installed by default in Windows, but its functionality also had to be manually enabled in some BIOS. Intel says the incorrect PPM led to APO not functioning properly, resulting in a performance decline from 2% to 14%. This issue has been resolved with the PPM package fix.
BSODs caused by anti-cheat software were fixed with an Easy Anti-Cheat driver update distributed by Epic Games.
Intel refers to the fact that the motherboard BIOS provided to reviewers had incorrect settings. The number of incorrect settings and changes in them depended on the supplier. Among these were settings like PCIe Resizable BAR, Intel APO, and others.
Their consequences were abnormally high memory latency (1.5-2.0 times higher), unstable frequency, high standard deviation in workloads, and decreased gaming performance benefiting from PCIe Resizable BAR and Intel APO — together a 2% to 14% performance decrease. All new BIOS versions eliminate this issue.
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