Intel has decided that the warranty extension it announced last week for chips with instability issues will apply to all of its 13th- and 14th-generation processors, not just packaged CPUs.
If you recall, when the move was made, increasing the warranty from three to five years, Intel said it applied to boxed products, but not to CPUs that came in pre-built PCs. (The so-called “tray” CPUs, so called because they are shipped to PC manufacturers in bulk, in trays, without boxes or packaging – because they are not needed and in this case are an unnecessary expense.)
If Video cardz spotted, Intel has provided some more information details about the warranty extension, and in the title of that message (from Thomas Hannaford, Intel’s Communications Manager), there is an important piece of news: the warranty applies to “Intel Core 13th/14th Gen Desktop Boxed/Tray CPUs.”
So now pay attention to the mention of both boxed And tray processors, while Intel had previously said there was “two years of extended warranty support for our Wrapped up Intel Core 13th and 14th generation desktop processors.” (In both cases, the words are bolded for emphasis.)
Team Blue also lists all chips from these generations as covered by the warranty extension, as you can see in the screenshot below (from the Core i5 13600K/14600K and up, basically – but not the non-K versions of the 13600/14600, it should be noted).
Analysis: Bad timing
Intel is busy putting out a pretty nasty PR disaster at the moment, which is likely why this warranty coverage has been extended. Either way, it’s nice to get some official acknowledgement that whatever 13th or 14th generation chip you have, as long as it’s an affected model as listed in the table above, you benefit from that five-year warranty – regardless of whether the processor was bought separately in a box or came in a pre-built PC.
There is still a lot of discontent that is circulating and echoing on various online forums about this whole issue. For starters, there is the topic of when the microcode update – the preventative patch that is coming – is going to arrive. We were promised mid-August, and that is now only a week away, and still no word.
Granted, it could still be on track, but we’re getting close now. And to be honest, we’d rather see Intel take their time to get this right, rather than rushing the update out – so there’s that too.
However, there are also concerns for those affected who have returned their CPUs and may soon receive a new replacement chip – if it arrives before the aforementioned microcode patch, will it be safe to install and use the processor (or could it do harm if the preemptive update isn’t ready and released)? Or will new chips ship with this microcode tweak already baked in? We don’t know.
As far as we know, Intel is still investigating these stability issues to see if there are any more significant culprits lurking under the hood of Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors. There’s a sense of unease and uncertainty about Intel’s overall approach here, and for us, a concern that processors that seem untouched now might eventually fail. (That’s surely what the warranty extension is for – but what about CPUs that last more than five years)?
We’re also waiting for Intel to fix the odd oxidation issue with more precision (in terms of providing batch numbers of affected processors), and some people online are still concerned about 13th or 14th generation laptop chips, even though Intel has assured us they are not affected.
With Arrow Lake CPUs coming later this year and the Ryzen 9000 coming soon, Intel is already struggling in the desktop market. These doubts don’t extend to its existing desktop CPU lines either.
Concerns about laptop processors don’t help matters either, even if they’re misplaced. Especially since Intel faces two foes on this front given the hype surrounding new Copilot+ PCs – namely Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X silicon and Ryzen AI 300 mobile processors.
In short, this is a bad time for all of this to happen and we believe Intel should step up the damage control on these stability issues and provide further clarification as soon as possible.