Gigabyte is the latest motherboard manufacturer to respond to the issues surrounding Intel’s Core i9 processors crashing in PC games, but it appears the company has overreacted in its attempts to fix these stability issues.
The BIOS update that Gigabyte has implemented addresses the specter of crashing by lowering certain power limits, with the problem being that the performance of the affected 13th and 14th generation Core i9 CPUs is severely hampered by the fix.
The motherboard supplier announced: “Gigabyte… has released the latest beta BIOS with Intel Baseline feature on Z790 and B760 series motherboards for improved stability, following feedback from Intel that high power settings can cause system instability in CPUs of the 13th/14th generation.”
The said new ‘Intel Baseline’ setting limits the power that can be delivered to boost the processor to a significantly lower amount than the default setting previously, as implemented by Gigabyte on these motherboards.
If Wccftech, who noticed this development, points out that the Gigabyte Auto (default) setting applies a value of 4096W, which effectively allows unlimited power – or we should say, as much as the CPU needs (it won’t try to chug 4000W, obviously), so there is no limitation – while Intel’s standard configuration is 253W. That’s 253W for both long session running and short endurance boost settings.
However, the new Gigabyte base profile lowers the power limit to 188W for short durations, and 125W for longer CPU sessions – or at least that’s what was discovered during tests conducted by the Chinese tech site Uniko’s hardware using a Core i9-13900KF processor.
That in turn limits boost speed significantly – less power simply equals slower clocks – making things more stable, but reducing performance. By how much though?
Uniko’s Hardware achieved a Cinebench R23 score of 40,021 on the original Gigabyte Auto setting, which dropped to 28,811 with Intel’s new standard. That’s a huge step back – not far from a 30% performance loss – in multi-threaded use (single-threaded was unaffected by the change in current limits).
In fact, the power-tamed Core i9-13900KF was hamstrung here to Core i7 performance levels – hardly ideal.
Uniko also tried a few games with before and after comparisons in a similar vein, and thankfully the results weren’t so obviously bad. While Cyberpunk 2077 was about 10% slower (at multiple resolutions from 1080p to 4K), the drops in other games were more on the order of 3% to 8% (depending on resolution).
The overall frame rate loss averaged around 5% for the games tested, so not too bad, although it may be a little more for some titles as indicated.
Analysis: A confusing picture that Intel needs to clarify quickly
Obviously this is just a limited set of a handful of tests with a single PC configuration, but if the perceived power limits are correct as Uniko outlines them, it’s a tall order. So Core i9 owners can indeed expect to lose quite a bit of performance in certain scenarios, don’t worry about it.
The caveat, as noted by Uniko, is that the 13900KF under test is a pre-release sample of sorts – so the site wonders if that could have any impact on the power limits set here. To be sure, we need someone else to help test this new Gigabyte BIOS.
Assuming this result is true, it seems strange that Gigabyte has been so cautious about implementing new power limits. Asus recently took the same step by introducing a BIOS with a new Intel Baseline Profile, but that motherboard manufacturer opted for a higher limit of 253 W (according to Intel’s standard configuration).
Now that 253W limit still heralded a performance drop (as fully expected), but Cinebench R23 multi-core was only 12.5% slower in this case with an Asus board. Still not great, but nowhere near the decline Uniko has seen with the Gigabyte motherboard. Similarly, in recent guidance, MSI told motherboard owners to operate at a power limit of 253W (Intel’s standard).
It seems like Gigabyte may be taking too cautious an approach with this new BIOS for now – unless the observed behavior has something to do with Uniko using a sample Core i9 chip. We should also remember that this is a beta BIOS release from Gigabyte, so it could be changed by the time it’s released (or it could even be buggy – stranger things have happened).
Time will tell, but what adds to the mystery here is that Gigabyte mentions “feedback from Intel” that high power settings can cause instability. So it appears that Team Blue is in contact with motherboard manufacturers – actively discussing the matter – and they are all releasing new BIOS updates, or alternatively offering advice on how to change the settings.
Yet consumers who own these CPUs have yet to hear from Intel about the ongoing investigation into this issue with PC games crashing on these high-end Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors.
The fact that there are different solutions being implemented and varying approaches by board manufacturers doesn’t help either, and adds to the general confusion around this. While it seems like this must be a motherboard and settings issue at this point, it would be good to get some confirmation from Intel on what exactly went wrong here – and whether there are any other factors to consider are held. After all, gamers paid a lot of money for these top CPUs, so let’s not leave them hanging.
Meanwhile, troubling reports of CPU degradation due to this instability issue continue, and that honestly needs to be addressed by Intel as well. Especially considering that it could at least partially explain an extremely cautious approach to the problem, like the one Gigabyte seems to be aiming for.