Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” CPUs Already Seeing Big Performance & Efficiency Improvements With Updated BIOS

The latest BIOS for Intel’s recently released Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” CPUs show big gains in both performance and efficiency.

Intel Might Have Left Out Optimal Power Management With The Pre-Equipped Firmware As New BIOS Delivers Performance Gains On Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” CPUs

Intel’s recently released “Core Ultra” Meteor Lake processors have gotten into the hands of their first reviewers & customers. Based on a review by UltrabookReview, Intel’s Meteor Lake laptops are equipped with a pre-release BIOS firmware that undermines performance vastly, mainly because it creates inefficiencies within the power delivery process. The review states that Intel has noticed the issue, & is working with partners to provide a fix. As such, ASUS has already made its latest UEFI firmware update bringing in noticeable performance & efficiency improvements.

Based on the benchmarks given by UltrabookReview’s author, Andrei Girbea, when upgrading the BIOS version to 203, from the previous 201, a 12.5% performance increment is seen in Cinebench testing. The author says that he is compiling data for other applications as well. Following is what he had to state:

I reran and updated the Cinebench scores again, with the laptop fresh from a cold boot up. In Cinebench R23, the CPU starts at 50W and ends up around 35W for the best-effort run. For the 10 min loop, it starts at 50W and then gradually drops and stabilizes at around 28W (after about 5-6 minutes it gets to 28W).

201: CineBench R23: CPU 12357 pts (best run), CPU 11342 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 1751 pts (best run);
203: CineBench R23: CPU 13873 pts (best run), CPU 12132 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 1761 pts (best run);

Yes, 3dmark, Uniengine are on BIOS 203. Everything else except for games and Cinebench R24 are on BIOS 203. Still updating those.

via UltrabookReview

Another interesting fact here is a review done by the famous hardware leaker Golden Pig Upgrade a week ago, which pointed out the same “inefficient power delivery” system in his testing. The reviewer says that there is a scheduling problem due to the early power measurement, and after updating the laptop with the latest firmware, significant improvements are seen in both power draw and performance.

Being a new architecture, Intel’s Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” CPUs and the respective laptops are bound to see various tuning, optimizations, and similar BIOS firmware updates that would lead to further performance and efficiency enhancements. This is Intel’s first chiplet design and we have also reported that Intel is working on a new driver that will address both CPU/GPU performance at lower power modes such as sub-28W. These updates will gradually be rolled out in Q1 2024 when Meteor Lake laptops become accessible to the majority of consumers.

News Sources: UltraBook Review, Golden Pig Upgrade, TechpowerUp