Intel is about to offer a free 7% gaming boost to its latest CPUs

Intel is gearing up to launch a free update for its Arrow Lake CPUs that could have big performance implications. A new feature is said to start rolling out later today called Intel 200S Boost, which Gigabyte described as a series of “pre-configured overclocking profiles” that are still covered under Intel’s three-year warranty. Intel has yet to announce 200S Boost, but Gigabyte spoiled the announcement with a press release that was sent live early. It has since been taken down, but Tom’s Hardware was able to confirm the existence of the feature, as well as test out its performance ahead of the official reveal.

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Intel 200S Boost offers up to a 7% boost in games

You’ll need to pair your CPU with speedy memory, however

As the name implies, 200S Boost specifically targets Intel’s Core Ultraa 200 series processors, otherwise known as Arrow Lake. Despite impressive productivity performance with the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K, lower-end chips failed to meet expectations. The Core Ultra 7 265K, which would normally be a popular option among gamers, fell well short of the competition from AMD and even Intel’s last-gen offerings. The new 200S Boost feature shakes up that dynamic, offering up to a 7% improvement in gaming performance according to testing done by Tom’s Hardware.

The outlet wasn’t able to access an early BIOS, but it was able to recreate the settings enabled by 200S Boost. The feature is specifically concerned with memory speeds and timings, so it doesn’t change anything about clock speeds or power limits with the CPU. Rather, it adds support for higher memory speeds (up to DDR5-8000), and boosts the speed of the Next Generation Uncore (NGU). This is a fabric that goes between the different components of the chip, and it should allow the memory to communicate with the CPU cores faster.

And it works. According to Tom’s Hardware, 200S Boost offers up to a 7% improvement in games on average, but there are a few caveats. First, when testing with DDR5-6400 memory, there wasn’t any performance improvement with 200S Boost. The fastest speeds came from DDR5-8000 memory. The good news is that Tom’s Hardware found that DDR5-7200 memory offered just about identical performance to DDR5-8000, and it should hopefully be more stable.

The update specifically targets gaming performance, so you shouldn’t expect big performance boosts in other applications. Tom’s Hardware ran through a series of non-gaming benchmarks, and the results all fell well within the margin of error.

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Although it’s hard to argue with free performance, the 200S Boost feature does little to help Intel climb to the top of the gaming leaderboards. AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D remains the undisputed champ of gaming performance by a significant margin. The new 200S Boost feature helps close that gap, but Intel is still largely competing with AMD’s non-X3D chips.

Intel hasn’t officially revealed 200S Boost yet, but the feature is reportedly arriving later today. Gigabyte prematurely announced its new series of BIOS updates supporting the feature, so other motherboard vendors should follow suit over the coming days.