Intel seems to have released an update on this. 14th and 13th Gen CPU stability issuescalling motherboard manufacturers for not following recommended settings.

Intel says stability issues with 14th and 13th Gen CPUs are caused by motherboard and system manufacturers not following their recommended settings.

The update comes after several months. Reported Intel's 14th and 13th Gen CPUs have very bad stability issues in many gaming applications. The problem was later discovered to be a problem caused by CPUs being pushed too far past the limitless power limits and thermal profiles.

These settings were usually enabled by default on motherboards and the only way to fix these issues was to either manually tune the entire chip or simply undervolt/underclock it. Either way there is a performance loss on your chip with a reported drop of -15% in recent tests. Tuning was necessary even though running the chip like this would result in serious silicon degradation, leading to further issues such as BSODs, inability to open any apps, and I/O/DRAM issues.

Just this week motherboard makers finally started to address this issue by adding a new “Intel BaseLine” BIOS option. This new BIOS has already been rolled out. ASUS And Gigabyte While MSI is offering a BIOS guide to its users. To mitigate these stability issues on Intel's 14th and 13th Gen CPUs. Other motherboard manufacturers will soon follow with their own solutions but as we mentioned above, these profiles result in some serious performance degradation in both multi-threaded apps and games. So if you want better stability, you'll have to run your chip slower than before.

Most high-end motherboards have power limits set to “unlimited” or “4096W/A” modes. Below is a look at the different power limits, motherboard “AUTO” (not for all motherboards), PL1 and PL2/3/4 limits.

• Motherboard Auto Profile: 4096W/4096W/Unlimited
• Intel Extreme Config (150W): 320W320W/400A
• Intel Extreme Config (125W): 253W/253W/400A
• Intel Standard Config (150W): 253W/253W/307A

Intel has now released a statement of its own that has been provided to media outlets but not yet to the public. The full update is as follows:

Intel has observed that the issue may be related to out-of-spec operating conditions that result in sustained high voltages and frequencies during high temperatures.

Analysis of the affected processors shows that some parts experience changes in minimum operating voltages that may be related to operation outside of Intel's specified operating conditions.

• While the root cause is still unknown, Intel has observed that most reports of this issue are from users with unlocked/overclockable motherboards.
• Intel has observed that 600/700 series chipset boards often set BIOS defaults to disable thermal and power delivery safeguards to limit processor exposure to sustained periods of high voltage and frequency. Designed, for example:
  – Disabling Current Excursion Protection (CEP)
  – Enabling IccMax Unlimited bit
  – Disabling Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) and/or Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost (eTVB)
  – Additional settings that may increase the risk of system instability:
  – Disabling C states
  – Using Windows Ultimate Performance Mode
  – Extending PL1 and PL2 beyond Intel's recommended limits

Intel requests system and motherboard manufacturers to provide end users with a default BIOS profile that matches Intel's recommended settings.

• Intel strongly recommends that the customer's default BIOS settings ensure operation within Intel's recommended settings.
• In addition, Intel strongly recommends motherboard manufacturers implement warnings for end users that inform them of the use of any unlocked or overclocking features.

Intel is actively continuing to investigate to determine the root cause of this issue and will provide additional updates as relevant information becomes available.

Intel will publish a public statement about the status of the issue and Intel has proposed BIOS setting recommendations targeted for May 2024.

Now we kind of knew this was coming and would be blamed on the motherboard manufacturers but it should be noted that Intel had no problem with these unlocked BIOS limitations when they were used by Intel. 14th and 13th Gen CPUs were made to increase performance. To make them look good in reviews. Also, the whole point of an unlocked chip is that people pay to use it for OC and other tuning purposes but if the whole point is to set it to its basic specs to make it stable, So what's the point of paying? Extra?

While we look forward to Intel's statement coming in May 2024, we hope this isn't another blame game on motherboard manufacturers as the problem has persisted for two generations of CPUs and Intel didn't care much about motherboard manufacturers. Recommended” settings until these issues start popping up.