Intel has something interesting going on with its new Binary Optimization Tool. Otherwise known as iBOT, it’s a translation layer along the lines of Microsoft Prism or Apple Rosetta. However, instead of translating instructions from one ISA (instruction set architecture) to another, it’s optimizing x86 applications to run more efficiently on Intel CPUs. As Intel puts it, it translates “other x86” to “Intel x86.”
It’s one of the marquee features on Intel’s new Core Ultra 200S Plus chips, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus. Although both show performance improvements strictly through silicon, at least part of their gaming boost comes courtesy of iBOT. It’s only enabled in 12 games right now, but Intel says iBOT is part of its long-term roadmap and that it’ll be a feature in Intel chips on desktop and mobile going forward. I wanted to see just how much of a boost iBOT represented, so I tested the feature in 10 of the 12 games it’s currently supported in, and I sat down with Intel’s Robert Hallock to better understand how the feature works and what it can offer.
