Intel's Core Ultra 9 Lags Behind Ultra 7 in Latest Asus Zenbook S14

The flagship processor underperforms due to BIOS issues, with Intel promising a fix soon.

The Asus Zenbook S14 equipped with Intel's Core Ultra 9 shows slower performance compared to the Ultra 7 in multi-threaded workloads.
Intel attributes the performance discrepancy to a BIOS issue and expects Asus to release a fix, but no timeline has been provided.
The Core Ultra 9's E-cores are running at higher frequencies than the P-cores, a new behavior attributed to Intel's Skymont architecture.
The Zenbook S14 is currently the only laptop available with the Core Ultra 9, which is not yet for sale in the US market.
Despite the performance issues, Intel's Lunar Lake processors aim to improve power efficiency and battery life, competing with Apple's MacBooks.