Ultra Turbo Mode on Gigabyte motherboards improves gaming performance by up to 35%

Gigabyte announced «the revolutionary» Ultra Turbo Mode performance enhancement feature for its Z890 motherboard line for Intel Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake processors.

This is a BIOS setting that improves performance by fine-tuning the processor, memory speed, latency, and power limits. According to Gigabyte, the mode provides up to 35% improvement in gaming performance. In addition, this feature provides up to a 68% boost in DDR5 memory performance in the AIDA64 benchmark. During testing, Ultra Turbo mode provided a 35% increase in FPS in Hitman 3: Dartmoor.

Conceptually, this is an evolution of the Intel 200 Boost profile, with additional tweaks and improvements in the BIOS. Intel introduced the 200S Boost overclocking profile and Intel Performance Optimization (IPO) for back in April with the goal of safe overclocking via the motherboard BIOS with full warranty coverage.

Previously, the site Tom`s Hardware tested the 200S Boost mode and noted a slight performance increase of up to 7.5%, thanks to the automatic application of memory overclocking profiles. The preset also improves internal communication between the chips and increases the clock speed of key interfaces, including Next Generation Uncore (NGU) from 2.6 GHz to 3.2 GHz, and Die-to-Die (D2D) from 2.1 GHz to 3.2 GHz. The profile resulted in performance gains in games ranging from 3.7% to 11.6%, depending on the game.

Unlike Intel’s offering, Gigabyte’s Ultra Turbo Mode has three separate performance profiles that are optimized for different workloads and use cases. LV1 Intel 200S Boost, as the name suggests, offers improvements based on the Intel 200S Boost profile. The LV2 Turbo mode includes additional CPU and memory overclocking profiles customized by Gigabyte to provide «aggressive optimization» for gaming and overall performance. The LV3 Extreme mode unleashes the maximum potential of system components, although the company does not indicate the associated settings.

Ultra Turbo Mode is available as a BIOS update Gigabyte Z890 series motherboards. The company currently offers about 20 Z890 motherboards. The manufacturer notes that the modes will work best with Intel Core Ultra 200S processors with an index such as Core Ultra 9 285K, Core Ultra 7 265K, and Core Ultra 5 245K.