Intel is giving Core Ultra 200S PCs a free performance boost

Intel is allegedly releasing a “free” overclocking tool called “200S Boost” for Intel Core Ultra 200 Series processors, which could lift performance by about 7 percent without voiding your warranty. Intel has yet to formally announce the technology, but the company’s announcement was spoiled by its partners, including Gigabyte, and by Tom’s Hardware, who obtained leaked firmware to test the new tool.

According to Hot Hardware, the 200S Boost technology requires a Core Ultra 9 285K, a Core Ultra 7 265K or 265KF, or a 245K/KF chip; a qualified motherboard with an Intel Z890 chipset; and 8,000 MT/s RAM with an XMP profile. Although Hot Hardware suggests that all Z890 motherboards should be able to take advantage of the 200S Boost feature, not all will include the necessary optimizations to do so.

What the new Core 200S Boost feature does is simply overclock the chip’s memory and fabric speeds rather than adjust the clock speeds or power settings, Tom’s Hardware reports. Specifically, the NGU/SA fabric is now clocked at 3.2 GHz (up from 2.6 GHz) and the die-to-die communication fabric is now also clocked at 3.2 GHz (up from 2.1 GHz). The fact that Intel is doing this while still preserving its warranty coverage is somewhat remarkable.

Whether or not you’ll be able to get Intel’s Core 200S Boost technology, however, is up to your motherboard manufacturer. When (if) they release a BIOS update for your board to include the new feature, you’ll need to go to any overclocking options provided by the BIOS and enable the new 200S Boost overclocking upgrade.

MSI, for example, offered this configuration guide below:

Intel’s Arrow Lake-S desktop processors emphasized lower power, but at “parity” performance for games and an overall geomean that was expected to be lower than Intel’s 14th-gen parts. A “free” boost might not be able to make up that lack, but it’s an improvement.