Intel has acknowledged problems with gaming performance of Arrow Lake processors and promised to fix them. The microcode update, codenamed 0x114, may be the first step in this direction, but it remains to be seen how significant the improvements will be.
Image Source: Intel
Intel processors traditionally occupy a strong position in the gaming CPU segment, even if they are not always faster than AMD in speed. However, with the release of desktop Core Ultra 200S processors, the company encountered unexpected problems: performance in some games was even lower than that of its predecessors. For example, the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K model is inferior even to the outdated Ryzen 7 5800X3D, released more than two years ago.
All this caused a wave of criticism, but Intel assured that it was working to correct the situation. Intel’s senior director of technical marketing, Robert Hallock, who previously worked at AMD, admitted the company’s mistakes in an interview with HotHardware. He noted that the company is aware of the problem and is actively working to improve gaming performance for Arrow Lake processors.
Image source: hoothardware.com
Improvements are expected to be achieved through software and firmware updates, including new CPU microcode. As a reminder, Intel had already released microcode 0x113 for Arrow Lake, but it was mainly aimed at improving memory compatibility. According to Asus ROG forum users, a key performance update should arrive with version 0x114. It is this patch that presumably fulfills Intel’s promises to correct the situation with gaming performance.
As for productivity gains, the exact numbers are still unknown. Hallock declined to share details, but hinted that the improvements could be “significant.” However, this concept is flexible, since the result can vary from a small increase in the most problematic games to the return of Core Ultra 200S processors to the level stated at their launch.
Regardless of the results, experts note the great possibilities of the Arrow Lake architecture. The performance of Lion Cove cores is already showing impressive results in synthetic benchmarks, and support for memory bandwidth up to 140 GB/s gives reason to believe that updates will be able to “fix” gaming performance.