Intel Denies Poor Gaming Performance of 200S-Series CPUs, Promises Targeted Optimizations

The Intel Core Ultra 200 series processors have garnered significant attention from consumers, but reviews released after the embargo lifted have been overwhelmingly disappointing, particularly regarding overall performance.

It's important to note that the 200 series processors are divided into desktop and mobile versions. The Intel Core Ultra 200S targets desktop platforms (Arrow Lake), while the Intel Core Ultra 200V is designed for laptops (Lunar Lake).

Gamers are particularly concerned with the gaming performance of the 200S series processors based on Intel Arrow Lake. However, testing has revealed peculiar performance characteristics under certain workloads for this series.

For instance, during testing, a reviewer noted that memory latency reached up to 180ns, whereas normal expected latency should be between 70-80ns, indicating significantly abnormal delays.

Intel's Vice President of Artificial Intelligence and Technical Marketing, Robert Hallock, mentioned that the launch of the 200S series did not go as planned. The observed decrease in gaming performance is primarily due to optimization issues.

Hallock revealed that Intel hopes to provide several patches for the Allow Lake processors by the end of November (or early December at the latest) aimed at optimization, which should improve the disappointing gaming performance.

Interestingly, he also stated that the decrease in gaming performance of Arrow Lake compared to Raptor Lake is not due to memory latency, nor is it a result of Intel's decision to switch to a tile-based architecture.

Instead, the poor gaming performance of Arrow Lake is mainly due to tuning and optimization issues, where certain BIOS and operating system-level settings might lead to significant performance fluctuations.

Internal testing by Intel suggests that Arrow Lake's performance is not inherently poor, indicating a substantial discrepancy between internal testing results and those reported by reviewers. Intel plans to implement extensive internal measures to address these discrepancies.

Furthermore, Intel will conduct a comprehensive audit to accurately identify the issues present at the launch of Arrow Lake, and will announce the measures it intends to take to resolve these issues.