It’s no secret that Intel has been experiencing major problems with its 13th and 14th generation desktop processors for almost a year now, which has slowly eroded some of its best processors – especially the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K – in terms of performance. And now there’s a new instability update that seems to slow speeds even further.
Users have been testing Intel’s latest BIOS patch, which should fix the instability on Intel’s 13th and 14th generation processors. However, user twfox on the Chiphel forums has noted a 6.5% drop in the Core i9-13900K in Cinebench R15’s single-core performance. In the Cinebench R23, the Core i9-14900K dropped about 2% in its multi-core performance score, putting it behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
While this may seem bad (and that would be an understandable approach), like Digital trends notes that this is much milder compared to previous performance drops that ranged from 9 to 20%. Intel has clearly learned from the first round of motherboard updates and is gradually mitigating the problem to much more acceptable levels.
Intel could still be in danger
According to one Intel blog updateis the latest problem discovered with the 13th and 14th generation processors, which is addressed by the current BIOS update. “Microcode and BIOS code require increased core voltages, which can cause a Vmin shift, especially during periods of inactivity and/or light activity.”
However, ‘moderate impact’ is not ‘no impact’, and the latter is Intel seemed to promise it when it reported on the patch’s internal test results. However, performance differences of 2% and 6.5% are generally well within the allowable margin for system differences, so ultimately Intel’s chips appear to have been resolved by the new update.
Fortunately for Intel, Team Blue is moving to an entirely new architecture with Arrow Lake and these current issues should not affect the new chips. This is especially important as Arrow Lake launches in October. Coupled with performance improvement updates for both the AMD Ryzen 9000 series and Intel’s last two generations, it will be crucial to pay attention to benchmark test scores in upcoming reviews.
Hopefully Intel will address this whole situation for the next generation, because AMD is currently chasing Intel’s desktop market share and Team Red’s chip game has evolved by leaps and bounds, while the MSRP remains generally lower than Team Blue’s offering. However, we will see soon enough whether Intel can hold the line with Arrow Lake.