Intel Arrow Lake: Another round of BIOS updates follows
The Core Ultra 200S had four problems at launch, which have now been resolved. A further BIOS update for more performance will follow.
(Image: heise online / mma)
Intel and motherboard manufacturers have botched the presentation of the current desktop processor generation in many respects. Intel has now admitted just how badly in a statement. According to the statement, there were four problems, some of which significantly reduced performance. Single-threaded performance was particularly affected.
Current BIOS and Windows updates as well as game patches fix the problems. BIOS versions with the microcode 0x113 are currently available, which together with a current Windows build (from 26100.2314) fixes most of the problems. In the single-threaded test of the Cinebench 2024 render benchmark, we have already seen a score increase of 34 percent as an extreme example.
Botched update distribution
The first problem Intel cites is errors with the energy-saving plan (Performance & Power Management Package, PPM) in Windows. The correct version with the optimized settings for Arrow Lake was inadvertently distributed with a Windows update after the market launch. Among other things, this could negatively affect the clock behavior, so-called core parking and latencies.
With core parking, the processor puts unused CPU cores to sleep. In games, for example, this can improve performance by preventing threads from jumping around wildly. The measured memory latencies were increased by 50 to 100 percent at peak times. Intel calculated performance costs of 6 to 30 percent here alone.
Due to the faulty energy-saving plan, the Application Performance Optimizer (APO), which improves thread distribution in supported games, also did not work. According to Intel, this cost a further 2 to 14 percent in performance.
(Image:Â Intel)
Crashes due to Easy Anti-Cheat
The third problem explicitly concerns the Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) software, which can lead to blue screens (BSODs) when playing games. The developer studio Epic Games is already distributing an update to game developers who are supposed to release patches for their titles.
A fourth problem is said to only affect early BIOS versions that motherboard manufacturers provided to testers before the market launch. According to the report, important parameters were often set incorrectly, including the Resizable Bar function, with which graphics cards can access the main memory, the clock frequencies of the interconnect and memory controller, and the power limits.
Intel admits that it did not adequately check the options in the BIOS versions. The company itself approves them. All in all, the errors caused considerable differences in performance between different tests.
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Further BIOS updates from January
In the course of the investigations into the performance problems, Intel says it has found further performance potential. A further round of BIOS updates with microcode version 0x114 will be released, which should increase frame rates in games by a single-digit percentage. Intel expects BIOS updates to be available in the first half of January 2025.
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(mma)
