Intel has come out to publicly admit that it nonetheless hasn’t recognized the basis reason for its high-end Core i9 Raptor Lake CPUs having instability points in video games. The Intel CPU crashing difficulty that impacts a few of its thirteenth and 14th technology CPUs as a substitute stays an ongoing level of investigation for the corporate.
The issues predominantly have an effect on variants of the Intel Core i9 14900K and 13900K variants (KF, KS, and so forth), which are the corporate’s present finest gaming CPU choices. Nevertheless, it will possibly additionally have an effect on the corporate’s Core i7 14700K and 13700K processors.
PCs based mostly on these CPUs have been crashing in some video games, notably these based mostly on Unreal Engine 5. Past that, the specifics are imprecise – as you may anticipate on condition that Intel nonetheless hasn’t nailed down the reason for the difficulty. Nevertheless, the issue has been constant sufficient for any suggestion of consumer error or software program issues to be dominated out.
Extra not too long ago, there had been hypothesis {that a} trigger had been discovered, which is that there’s an error within the microcode used to manage the Enhanced Thermal Velocity Increase (eTVB) function of Intel’s top-tier processors. This function routinely will increase the clock velocity of the processor so far as potential in accordance with how effectively the CPU is being cooled. If there’s thermal headroom, the CPU will push its velocity increased and better.
Nevertheless, Intel has now come out and confirmed to Tom’s {Hardware} that, whereas this difficulty is “doubtlessly contributing to instability, it’s not the basis trigger.”
All that is off the again of Intel having stated it might difficulty a public assertion on the issue again in Could 2024, however as but we’re nonetheless ready.
So what are you able to do to assist scale back the possibilities of this occurring to your Intel gaming PC? The primary piece of recommendation Intel has to date steered is replace the BIOS in your motherboard. Some time again, Intel launched a set of tips for default BIOS settings that motherboard producers have been implementing through BIOS updates.
These settings embrace enabling C-states, Enhanced Thermal Velocity Increase, Present Tour Safety (CEP), Thermal Velocity Increase, and Thermal Velocity Increase Voltage Optimizations by default. Intel additionally recommends having ICCMAX Limitless Bit set to disabled by default and TjMax offset set to 0.
Nevertheless, curiously, it doesn’t make any modifications to the ICCMax, ICCMax_App, and Energy Limits settings. These enable the chips to nonetheless draw massive quantities of energy, suggesting that Intel doesn’t consider the difficulty is solely to do with the CPUs often drawing an excessive amount of energy. All you actually need to know, although, is that for those who obtain the newest BIOS in your motherboard it ought to no less than scale back the possibilities of these crashes.
In the event you’re looking out for a brand new gaming CPU proper now, try our Ryzen 7 7800X3D assessment to search out out why this AMD processor is our best choice.
