Intel has issued new guidelines for its motherboard partners regarding the continued problems around crashing Intel Core i9 13th and 14th Gen processors.
As reported by Tom's Hardware, the new guidelines issued by Intel have been enforced to combat the stability issues of its high-end chipsets. Crucially, the chipset manufacturer has doubled-down that it's not blaming the partners.
Team Blue has ushered a new slate of recommended settings including enabling CEP, eTVB, TVB, TVB Voltage Optimizations, and C-states, while disabling ICCMAX Unlimited Bit. However, other BIOS settings like ICCMAX, ICCMAX_App, and Power Limits will vary by manufacturer.
The biggest problem that some Raptor Lake Intel Core i9 CPUs have been having is crashing while gaming and even refusing to boot Windows period, and Intel's proposed BIOS fix above could aid stabilization on this front. Previously, Intel had said that it's your motherboard's fault and not its hardware, which is a different narrative to what's being offered here now.
It should be stated that Intel is still investigating the source of the problems and that these new BIOS settings are more of a band-aid fix than full-on surgical intervention. A patch or full dedicated update has yet to be offered, and should a catch-all solution be found, will need to implemented on a manufacturer-by-manufacturer basis.
What's most curious about the proposed new BIOS settings is that the Power Limits are variable. This implies that Intel does not believe that the power draw of its high-end chipsets is to blame for the instability issues. Additionally, this list of fixes could result in decreased performance than the peak of what the chips can do, which could be disappointing, especially as you're paying a premium to be on the bleeding edge.
The problems do not appear to be over yet
As touched upon above, Intel and its partners have made suggestions for BIOS updates which could get around the instability but it's not a catch-all fix. We've been aware of these problems happening for the past few months, with some outlets claiming it's been happening since the inception of the Intel Core i9-13900K in 2022.
If you're running either the 13900K or the 14900K and are having problems then we recommend trying out these new settings. However, should it get to a point where the system is refusing to boot, you may need to RMA the chip to fully rectify the problem which could be a big headache.
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