Igor's laboratory It appears to have received a letter originally intended for motherboard manufacturers regarding a long-standing stability issue with the 13th generation Raptor Lake chipsets and the 14th generation Raptor Lake Refresh chipsets, which are among the top CPUs. It made sense for the company to clarify the issue as many blamed motherboard manufacturers in the race to be the “fastest” by having excessive voltage to allow for higher clock speeds.
The company specifically points out the issue with 600/700 series motherboard manufacturers disabling thermal and power protection to achieve the highest possible speed, even at the cost of instability. The chipmaker said in the letter:
Intel notes that this issue may be related to substandard operating conditions resulting in sustained high voltage and frequency during periods of high temperature.
Analysis of affected processors shows that some parts experience changes in minimum operating voltage that may be related to operation outside Intel® specified operating conditions.
Although the root cause has not yet been determined, Intel® has noted that the majority of reports of this issue come from users with unlock/overclock capable motherboards.
Intel notes that 600/700 series chipset boards often set default BIOS settings to disable heat and power delivery safeguards designed to limit the processor's exposure to prolonged periods of high voltage and frequency, for example:
– Disable current trip protection (CEP)
– Enable unlimited IccMax bits
– Disable Thermal Speed Boost (TVB) and/or Enhanced Thermal Speed Boost (eTVB)
– Additional settings that may increase the risk of system instability:
– Disable C states
– Use Windows Ultimate Performance mode
– Increase PL1 and PL2 beyond Intel® recommended limits
Intel requires system and motherboard manufacturers to provide end users with a default BIOS profile that matches Intel's recommended settings.
Intel strongly recommends that the customer's default BIOS settings ensure operation within Intel's recommended settings.
Additionally, Intel strongly recommends that motherboard manufacturers implement warnings for end users to alert them to any use of the unlocking or overclocking feature.
Intel continues to actively investigate this issue to determine the root cause and will provide additional updates as relevant information becomes available.
Intel will publish a public statement regarding the issue status and Intel-recommended BIOS setup recommendations targeting May 2024.
Asus was the first to address the issue on its side of the fence as it began rolling out a new BIOS with the “Intel Baseline Profile,” which mitigated the issue by lowering the power limit and using Intel's recommended settings. Eventually, a couple of other motherboards addressed this, with MSI providing a tutorial on how to set the motherboard's BIOS to run Intel's power limits and voltage specifications. Gigabyte has rolled out the BIOS beta like Asus. It's uncertain why MSI hasn't released similar firmware for some, if not all, of the company's motherboards.
These steps will naturally reduce performance, but it is much better than crashes during gameplay. It was mostly an issue with those who used Core i9 SKUs from both generations. The lesson is that overclocking should be a manual and dedicated endeavor, as not all silicon is the same. Enabling maximum settings by default is not a good idea either, especially when increasing the power limit and turning off other specific protection options out of the box.
Intel introduced “Extreme Power Delivery” with its 13th Gen CPUs, like the Core i9-13900KS, which peaked at 320W across this profile. At the same time, Intel had already recommended the steps, and motherboard manufacturers should have played it safe so that end users who wouldn't have trouble navigating manual settings in the BIOS wouldn't be on the receiving end.
Intel may have stricter guidelines that motherboard manufacturers must follow, since such issues can persist for a few months before being narrowed down.
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