Intel is advising consumers about high-end Core i9 CPUs crashing β and it’s about time
Intel has finally made a statement about the issues with its high-end 13th and 14th generation processors that are causing some CPU owners to experience stability issues and crashes while gaming.
Hasn’t Intel already released an official statement? Not for consumers β we just heard the talk passed on to hardware partners β but now we’ve delivered that advice directly to affected buyers of these Core i9 Raptor Lake Refresh and Raptor Lake CPUs.
It’s a bit of a hike, so put on your walking shoes and wander through the included paragraphs.
Intel tells us (via Tom’s hardware): βSeveral motherboard manufacturers have released BIOS profiles labeled ‘Intel Baseline Profile’. However, these BIOS profiles are not the same as the “Intel Default Settings” recommendations that Intel recently shared with its partners regarding the instability issues reported with 13th and 14th generation K SKU processors.
βThese ‘Intel Baseline Profile’ BIOS settings appear to be based on power guidance previously provided by Intel to manufacturers detailing the various power options for 13th and 14th Generation K SKU processors based on motherboard capabilities. Intel does not recommend that motherboard manufacturers use ‘baseline’ power settings on boards that can handle higher values.
βIntel’s recommended ‘Intel Default Settings’ are a combination of thermal and power delivery features, along with a selection of possible power delivery profiles based on motherboard capabilities. Intel recommends that customers implement the highest power delivery profile compatible with each individual motherboard design, as indicated in the table below.β
So there you have it. Would you like the translation distilled into a much shorter version? Here goes: ‘Are you aware of the recommended “basic” power settings recently outlined by your motherboard manufacturer? Do not use them, use Intel’s ‘default’ settings as described in the table below.’
Analysis: Motherboard is important
It appears that Intel is recommending against the recommended “basic” settings because motherboard manufacturers have gone too far and dialed back the power settings too much (resulting in a notable performance loss, as we’ve seen in some cases).
Team Blue instead recommends default settings for those with lower-end motherboards, but as Tom notes, that’s not the case for premium boards. High-end motherboards can be pushed harder because they have the components, build quality and resources to handle it. Therefore, Intel recommends using the βhighest power delivery profile compatible with your motherboard.β
This means you can run with the Performance or Extreme profiles (faster, but more power-hungry) on premium motherboards, but for those with a standard effort: stick to the recommended Intel standard (not the ‘baseline’ which goes too far in taming power consumption, apparently).
Confused? Well, some people might be. For those with said premium motherboards, the table above lists the settings you’ll need if you want to tune things manually.
Those who are less tech savvy probably won’t want to mess around in a BIOS to get these various settings right. That said, anyone with a top-end motherboard and Core i9 CPU will likely be a PC enthusiast who’s comfortable with that sort of thing, but still, we shouldn’t make blanket assumptions.
All of this was a rather frustrating affair, but ultimately, if you’re still unsure what to do with your Core i9 processor, stick with the mentioned default profile and opt for a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach.
While Intel has placed the blame for these problems pretty firmly on the motherboard manufacturers, the chip giant has never really clarified whether there are other factors at play here. We assume not, or at least that is the conclusion.
We also didn’t receive any form of apology – which is perhaps not surprising given the apparent blame game being played. But at the very least, we’d like a little “sorry for the delay” for how slowly this message has gotten through to consumers.