Intel’s promised Arrow Lake autopsy details up to 30% loss in performance

Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs didn’t make it on our list of the best processors when they released earlier this year. As you can read in our Core Ultra 9 285K review, Intel’s latest desktop offering struggled to keep pace with last-gen options, particularly in games, and showed strange behavior in apps like Premiere Pro. Now, Intel says it has fixed the issues with its Arrow Lake range, which accounted for up to a 30% loss in real-world performance compared to Intel’s in-house testing.

The company identified five issues with the performance of Arrow Lake, four of which are resolved now. The latest BIOS and Windows Updates (more details on those later in this story) will restore Arrow Lake processors to their expected level of performance, according to Intel, while a new firmware will offer additional performance improvements. That firmware is expected to release in January, pushing beyond the baseline level of performance Intel expected out of Arrow Lake.

I’m going to dig into all of the issues Intel found, but if you’re just concerned with getting the best performance out of your Arrow Lake CPU, all you need to do is perform a couple of updates. First, make sure you’re running on Windows 11 build 26100.2161 or later. You can see your build version in the About this PC screen in the Windows Settings app. Next, if you’re using a Z890 motherboard, make sure you’ve updated to the latest BIOS. Those two changes will restore Arrow Lake’s performance, according to Intel.

Intel’s Robert Hallock returned to Hot Hardware to reveal the changes, noting that the correct drivers and BIOS settings weren’t available to reviewers, which would explain why CPUs like the Core Ultra 5 245K performed much lower than expected. I’ll be testing these updates, but in the meantime, here’s what Intel says went wrong.

Missing PPM package

Intel says the biggest issue with Arrow Lake was an incorrect Processor Power Management, or PPM, package in Windows 11. The PPM does a lot, and Intel says that it estimates this package alone accounted for anywhere from a 6% to 30% performance drop depending on the application. Windows 11 build 26100.2161 includes the updated PPM package, so all you need to do is run the latest Windows updates on your PC to get it.

As for what went wrong with the PPM package, it’s dealer’s choice. Intel notes spikes in memory latency, incorrect C-states, and incorrect scheduling as just some of the problems with the broken PPM package. Shortly after release, I saw half a dozen users claiming higher performance sfter disabling cores and digging deep within the BIOS, and that was likely due to the PPM package. The processor wasn’t behaving in the way it should, causing big variations in testing results and poor performance in games.

Intel APO wasn’t working

After the release of the Core Ultra 9 285K, I tested Intel’s Application Optimization, or APO. This feature offers a performance boost in a select number of games, and my previous testing of the feature showed boosts as high as 26% in supported games. I saw no performance boost with APO on the Core Ultra 9 285K, and apparently I wasn’t alone. Due to the incorrect PPM package, Intel APO never worked as intended on Arrow Lake.

APO essentially didn’t work at all. The PPM package apparently tips APO off about games that are supported, and with that package absent, APO never went into effect. This issue is resolved with the correct PPM package available in Windows 11 build 26100.2161, and Intel estimates it accounts for between a 2% and 14% performance loss depending on the game.

Blue Screens for Easy Anti-Cheat

Although it didn’t impact performance, Intel notes that older versions of the Easy Anti-Cheat software would cause a Blue Screen of Death with Arrow Lake CPUs. Launching a game with this software would cause the system to lock up completely. An updated Easy Anti-Cheat driver apparently solves the problem, and Intel says it’ll be available through a game update in titles that use the software.

Incorrect BIOS settings

Intel revealed several “VIP settings” in the BIOS that weren’t configured properly at release. These settings include some basics, like Resizeable BAR, but also more advanced settings like transient power limits and compute tile ring frequency. Intel says these settings weren’t universally toggled to their most performant state, causing variations in performance across motherboards and BIOS versions. The company says that the most recent Z890 BIOs enforce these settings universally as defaults.

You just need to update your BIOS in order to get the correct settings. There’s a pretty wide range of potential performance loss depending on which, if any, of these settings were incorrectly configured. Intel estimates the same 2% to 14% performance loss that it quoted for APO, but it’s hard to say if these settings will make a huge difference in performance or not. It really depends on the individual hardware.

Looking forward

In addition to the above issues, Intel says it uncovered some additional performance improvements that it’s working into a firmware update. According to the company, this firmware will be available through a BIOS update in January. Intel hasn’t said how big these improvements are, but they go beyond what the above four issues resolved. According to Intel, “complete and intended functionality is restored” on Arrow Lake CPUs right now.

I’ll be retesting Arrow Lake CPUs in short order, but Intel is doing the same. The company says it plans on offering performance data accounting for all of the new changes to media at CES 2025 next month.