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Intel Announces Major Free Processor Performance Updates: Get Them Now
In a surprise move, Intel has announced significant updates to its Core Ultra 200 Arrow Lake processors, which were met with criticism and underwhelming performance upon their release in October. The company claims that these free updates can improve performance by up to 30%.
According to Intel, the issues with the original processors stemmed from a range of factors, including missing, incomplete or malfunctioning processor power management (PPM) in Windows, which could have resulted in significantly reduced performance and unpredictable results. It appears that this issue affected single-threaded as well as multi-threaded performance, potentially slowing down systems by anywhere between 6% to 30%.
Additionally, the company’s Application Performance Optimizer (APO), which aims to prioritize demanding tasks such as gaming threads on higher-performing cores, may not have been functioning correctly. This could have resulted in game threads being misdirected to lower-power E-cores or neglected entirely, leading to subpar results.
To address these concerns, Intel has released a Windows 11 update (KB5044384) that tackles the aforementioned issues. The company also emphasized the importance of configuring correct memory frequency and CPU performance profile settings, as well as enabling PCIe resizable BAR correctly.
Intel has pushed out new BIOS updates that guarantee proper configuration of these settings, which can be accessed via the support page of your specific motherboard model. It is essential to ensure that you are running the latest BIOS versions to reap the benefits of these improvements.
Furthermore, Intel has announced that additional BIOS updates will be rolled out in early January, promising single-digit performance boosts across 35 games. These updates will include microcode update 0x114 and Intel CSME Firmware Kit 19.0.0.1854v2, as well as the latest Windows 11 build (26100.2314 or newer).
These updates come as a relief to users who have been experiencing subpar performance with their Core Ultra 200 processors. While it remains unclear why these issues were not addressed earlier in the development cycle, Intel’s prompt response is a welcome step towards rectifying the situation.
In conclusion, if you’re an owner of a Core Ultra 200 processor, it is essential to download and install these free updates as soon as possible to optimize your system’s performance.
Source: www.forbes.com
