A hot potato: The coming weeks will be crucial for Intel as they work to address Arrow Lake's issues and restore faith in their latest processor lineup. Meanwhile, potential buyers may want to wait for the promised fixes and subsequent third-party testing before investing in these new chips.
In a recent YouTube interview with HotHardware, Intel VP and GM of Client AI and Technical Marketing Robert Hallock tackled the challenging launch of the company's new Arrow Lake processors. The Core Ultra 200S series, as they're officially known, has faced scrutiny since its October debut. Hallock confirmed that the launch did not go as planned, with unexpected performance issues emerging, particularly in gaming workloads.
The primary culprit behind Arrow Lake's underwhelming launch is optimization problems rather than fundamental hardware flaws. Hallock said that certain combinations of BIOS and operating system settings created issues that hampered performance. This issue resulted in bizarre and inconsistent benchmark results across various workloads.
One of the most striking examples of these issues was abnormally high memory latency. In one instance, a reviewer recorded latency as high as 180 nanoseconds - more than double the expected 70-80 nanoseconds for Arrow Lake. However, Hallock clarified that this specific memory latency problem was not the root cause of the gaming performance regression compared to the previous Raptor Lake generation.
The gaming performance of Arrow Lake has been particularly disappointing. In some cases, the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K has lagged behind its predecessor, the Core i9-14900K, and competing chips from AMD. This lackluster showing in gaming workloads is unusual, as it's traditionally been a strong point for Intel processors.
Hallock also noted a significant disconnect between the performance observed by third-party reviewers and Intel's internal testing results. Intel has launched an internal investigation to identify and address the underlying causes of these optimization issues.
At the same time, it is working on a series of fixes for Arrow Lake. Hallock said he was hopeful that at least a couple of these fixes would be ready by the end of November or early December at the latest.
The acknowledgment of these problems and the promise of swift action are positive signs from Intel. However, the Core Ultra 200S series launch has been one of Intel's most troubled in recent memory. The company faces an uphill battle to regain consumer confidence and improve the performance of these new chips, especially in the crucial gaming market.