Intel Arrow Lake 0x114 Microcode Already Out, No Significant Gains—We Tested

[btarunr]

Motherboard vendor ASUS began rolling out UEFI firmware (BIOS) updates to its Intel Z890 motherboards that contain Intel's 0x114 Microcode update for Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors. The new microcode was touted as bringing in performance gains to gaming workloads across the board, with Intel saying that depending on the configuration, one could expect a "roughly 3-8% performance gain." The company said that motherboard vendors should begin releasing BIOS updates with 0x114 "starting January 2025," however, it seems like ASUS is ready with public "stable" (non-beta) BIOS updates with it. We use a ROG Maximus Z890 Hero in our "Arrow Lake-S" reviews, and so promptly grabbed the version 1203 BIOS from the ASUS website, and put it to the test. This also updates Intel ME (management engine) to v19.0.0.1827.

We added our performance testing numbers to our article from yesterday (December 19, 2024), where we had tested the Core Ultra 9 285K with the latest OS-level patches for Windows 11 24H2. Long story short, we do not notice any notable performance gains with the 0x114 microcode update. 0x114 was touted as providing users with additional performance gains after all the OS- and BIOS configuration related issues had been fixed. In its pre-brief from earlier this week, Intel said that the 0x114 microcode update represented additional performance gain opportunities that the company had discovered in the process of identifying and fixing the reasons why the processors fell significantly behind Intel's performance guidance in their launch reviews in October.

We recommend you to once again read our performance testing article from yesterday, we have updated the performance graphs with 0x114 microcode update numbers, and are in the process of providing additional commentary in the article. Here's a teaser:



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[mtosev]

Too bad that there isn't much of an improvement.

 

[Scrizz]

There's something odd with the fresh install.

 

[W1zzard]

There's something odd with the fresh install.

Yes, this is exactly why I used 23H2 in my review and the thing that Intel has fixed with the PPM update

 

[Lore]

At this point I'm feeling kind of sorry for Intel. Arrow lake seemed like such a nice upgrade in theory, but even with all these fixes it seems very meh in reality. The good thing is poor people like my can keep old processors longer without feeling left so far behind.

 

[jaszy]

So.. Ram latency didn't change either?

 

[Chaitanya]

On one hand we have GPU division of this company and on the other is this idiotic CPU division.

 

[Max Mojo]

In the Asus Forum are some posts regarding these issues:
https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/intel-800-series/arrowlake-resources/td-p/1051570/page/14

 

[Ed_1]

The way I read Intels comments you need this ME version, which hasn't been released AFAIK.
"Intel CSME Firmware Kit 19.0.0.1854v2.2 (or newer)."

Also note the v2.2 at end.

 

[Max Mojo]

The way I read Intels comments you need this ME version, which hasn't been released AFAIK.
"Intel CSME Firmware Kit 19.0.0.1854v2.2 (or newer)."

Also note the v2.2 at end.

That's what I've noticed as well. In the download ME_Intel_v19.0.0.1854.zip I can't find a hint to v2.2.
So the versions seem to make only marginal to zero differences.
I wonder how the motherboard manufacturers view this as they are suffering.

 

[AcE]

Oh how surprising considering the history of Intel…. not.

 

[docnorth]

So it's the best 24H2 , i.e. optimizations could (or not) improve performance beyond 23H2.

@btarunr any difference regarding consumption? Thanks.

 

[Dr_b_]

would really love to know the exact sales figures for these CPUs

 

[Bobaganoosh]

Oh dear. I just imagine a scenario where the engineers are like "yeah, this is not going to go well" and the management moves forward with "Engineering said 'going to go well' so I don't understand why the numbers are bad. We're investigating a fix".

 

[bug]

The new microcode was touted as bringing in performance gains to gaming workloads across the board, with Intel saying that depending on the configuration...

Did Intel really say that? Or was that yet another rumor that got spread because Intel?

 

[truehighroller1]

What about how it compares to the 13900k? I'm still rocking a good binned one so I don't want to upgrade because it'd be a waste of money.

 

[Chrispy_]

What about how it compares to the 13900k? I'm still rocking a good binned one so I don't want to upgrade because it'd be a waste of money.

13900K = 14900K

They're identical products, it's just that Intel felt comfortable enough with the process node to officially certify higher clocks, which turned out to be a terrible idea anyway.

If you really want to be generous, deduct 1.4% from the 14900K's score to give you the 13900K's score - but that really is the best-case scenario for the 14900K in an artificially-contrived 4090@720p resolution, done that way solely to rule out the GPU bottleneck that is practically guaranteed to be your real limitation.

At a sane resolution, the scores are the same, and if there's any difference between the two chips it's more likely down to the BIOS and BIOS settings of the motherboard in question, since power limits are such a huge issue for Intel 13th/14th gen.

 

[Lycanwolfen]

Intel should just scrap it. Get back to it's roots. Reminds me of the days Ahtlon 64 was kicking intels butt left right and center in 2005 days. Then after a whole year the first Core 2 Duo came out it ran only at 1.833 Ghz and outperformed every Athlon X2 64 on the market even running at 3.2 ghz. Heck I still have a Core 2 Quad around here somewhere. But that was intel at it's best they got back to there root did a complete redesign of there cpus and came out with something amazing. Then the Core i Series came out and for a better part of 10 years but now it basicly needs to come to an end. Intel really needs to drop the Core i series and come out with something new a cool new name of a series and a whole new way of doing things. In the Desktop market I think they need to drop these E cores and I cores BS. They need a pure 16 core and they could do it too some of the newer Xeons have some awesome cpus. Hopefully Intel will do something amazing again next year. But for now it's back to the same ole as they were in 2005.

I still am running a Core i9 9900 KF which too this day still has some of the highest IPC values for a single thread on the market. Perfect example of Intel at it's best.

 

[Visible Noise]

On one hand we have GPU division of this company and on the other is this idiotic CPU division.

Intel/AMD, Ying/Lang.