“ I ’ll never corrupt an Intel mainframe at launching again . ”
That ’s what one Reddit user told me after I mouth with themabout unstableness issueswith theirCore i9 - 13900K. The exploiter said they went through four Core i9 - 13900Ks over several months , leave them without a functioning play personal computer for three months due to repairs . Another told me they slowly replaced every ingredient in their organisation expect for the CPU , saying they ’ve “ NEVER had an issue with Intel products . ” This sentence , though , theCore i9 - 14900Kwas the job .
The problem is getting worse
Let ’s back up . The first report of unbalance on the Core i9 - 13900 K and Core i9 - 14900 K made the rounds late last year , but it was n’t until a write up out of Korea that the yield picked up steam . Apparently gamers werereturning these CPUs in drovesdue to wreck inTekken 8and other Unreal Engine games . That remind Intel to work with motherboard vendors to release the Intel Baseline Profile , which changed a incumbrance of BIOS circumstance for stableness . In testing , some electric receptacle found this newfangled profile could head toup to a 9 % drop in performance .
The treatment died down , but it ’s pick up once again . YouTube channel Level1Techs free a picture enquire the source of crash and found a lot of uncomfortable data . One developer the YouTuber spoke to said that theymight turn a loss over $ 100,000 in lost players due to multiplayer server clank on server running the Core i9 - 13900 K or Core i9 - 14900K. source from Dell , Lenovo , and HP also told the YouTuber that they trust around 10 % to 25 % of these chips have issues , while Level1Techs speculated that number might be closer to 50 % .
The crash rate is what really stand out . Over a 90 - day period , Level1Techs found 1,584 crashes due to a decompression error in an unknown plot developer ’s crash database . Out of that , 1,431 of the clang were from the Core i9 - 13900 K and Core i9 - 14900K. Keep in mind this is forallcrashes in this 90 - day stop . For context of use , AMD ’s CPUs in totality represented only four error in the database over this period . Before you retrieve that Intel is just overrepresented , Level1Techs found that AMD CPUs make up about 30 % of mainframe in the data , despite representing only 0.25 % of crashes . Just the Core i9 - 13900 K and Core i9 - 14900 K alone — ignore all other Intel CPUs — make up over 90 % of the clangoring .
It seems the trouble is only getting worse , too . “ For the players that play consistently , the number of errors they ’re encountering with their system are definitely increasing over sentence for [ the Core i9 - 13900 K and Core i9 - 14900 K ] , I can say that , ” Wendall from Level1Techs said .
“ … we notice a traffic pattern : almost all [ smash ] were coming from systems with 13th and fourteenth generation Intel processor . ”
Wendall also point out that this rate of crashes suffers from some survivorship bias . It does n’t account for things like punishing system crash when you get a Blue Screen of Death ( BSOD ) . This data is just for one error , too . We ’ve get wind legion other error , such asthe infamous errorof a GPU being out of memory , that ’s hard to assign to the CPU in a crash database .
The fib up to this point with instability has been centre around top executive , andspecifically how motherboard vendorsare feeding too much major power to the Core i9 - 13900 K and Core i9 - 14900K. Wendall ’s investigating disagrees with that assertion , however . In speaking with game developers who had these CPUs deploy in multiplayer servers , Wendall saw that 50 % of the server using either one of these CPUs have have from unbalance . That ’s also when using the buttoned-down workstation - class motherboard chipset , which does n’t tip unneeded major power to the CPU .
This is the husk that ’s breaking the camel ’s back . A datum center provider tell apart Wendall that “ funding incidents have been unusually high for that conformation , ” speaking on the Core i9 - 13900 K and Core i9 - 14900K. Because of that , this supplier charge over $ 1,000 more for support on Intel systems compared to AMD . Game developers are now talk out on their own with issues , too .
As mentioned , Alderon Games wentas far as to call Intel ’s CPUs “ bad ” and tell it would be transitioning all of its multiplayer server to AMD . Alderon Games makesPath of Titans , which is n’t the most popular game . Maybe it ’s just a unsound heap ? That does n’t look like the guinea pig . Warframeis in the top 50 most played game on Steam — No . 29 at the time of penning — and regularly has over 50,000 concurrent player just on Steam alone ( the game is available on other personal computer storefront , as well as console ) .
“ After aggregating hundreds of news report from helpful player we discovered a practice : almost all [ crashes ] were coming from systems with 13th and 14th coevals Intel processor , ” oneWarframedeveloperwrote in a meeting place post .
It’s officially widespread
We ’re beyond a small radical of exploiter who have unstableoverclockson their organization . This is officially a widespread problem that affects users who are doing everything by the book . I mean , consider that Epic Games hasa consecrated support pagefor crashes inFortniterelated to these two CPU . You do n’t see that very often .
Intel has die to get in front of this problem , and it ’s uprise to be too big to neglect . The bighearted guidance we ’ve visualise so far is aforum post madelast calendar month by Intel ’s Thomas Hannaford — the PR manager for Intel , if that says anything . That ’s despite Intel promising it would make a statement in May when these issues startle popping up in the first place this class . And the guidance here is for users to update their BIOS , use the default visibility , and potentially hurt a carrying out loss .
But even then , the government issue is n’t resolve . Intel itself has made it clean that the investigation is on-going , and Wendall say that , although the BIOS update assist , they have n’t fixed the problem exclusively . Every user I mouth to said that they were n’t overclocking their system , and even after BIOS updates , problem returned .
“ This was one of the most frustrative issues to troubleshoot that I ’ve ever experienced . There were so many variable star to consider , include dozens of BIOS configurations . It does give me some pause about the next fourth dimension I upgrade my PC , and I ’ve been an avid Intel user for over a decade , ” one user severalize me .
It ’s not unreasonable to expect a locating from Intel after so many month . This is a complex , inconsistent issue , however . you’re able to yield Intel some grace for not have a concrete fix given how many variables are at frolic . It ’s hard for me to offer grace with the lack of communication , however , especially given how prevalent these problem still are .
A communication failure
Last year , AMD was caught up in a problem where some of its Ryzen 7000 CPUs could causephysical harm to the motherboard socketwith improper power preferences . The problem was resolved in two days . More importantly , AMD come out with clean steering almost immediately and informed its support team to prioritize type with users strike by the problem . Intel may have done the same internally , but it has n’t communicate that .
rather , the big disclosure we ’ve come across up to this point have come from leak internal communications between Intel and its motherboard partners , independent investigation into performance issues , and sporadic guidance from everyone from Epic Games to the Oodle decompression pecker . I can find a dozen self-governing troubleshooting guides online before finding any form of prescribed statement from Intel .
We ’re reaching a break point . Intel is n’t , and it should n’t , rush to conclusion just to provide some reassurance to regard users . That could make the trouble worse when it has n’t identified the root cause . That does n’t change the fact that Intel does n’t seem to be providing much direct bread and butter .
We have little in the way of prescribed program line , and according to Wendall ’s investigating , even system provider are unreadable about how to address the problem . There ’s a serious communication outlet here .
Here ’s what I ’d like to see from Intel : a consecrate page for instability on 13th - gen and 14th - gen processor . After months of secondhand sources and reports , users need a dedicated spot where they can go to see what the recent maturation are and get support .
I ’d also like to see an apology from Intel , not only for this issue in the first blank space but also the desperate lack of communication over the past several months . Intel ’s forum post detail these issues has nearly 50,000 views at the prison term of writing — even featured posts on Intel ’s forums only clean up a few thousand — so this is clear something that users are try out . Intel require to make this info easy to find .
Ideally , this should befall immediately . After the video posted by Level1Techs , it seems that we ’re get more and more paper of fed - up client — both for personal and commercial-grade use — adding fuel to an already blazing fire .
Update 7/22/24 : Since publishing this article , Intel has release a statementthat pins blame on higher operating electric potential due to faulty microcode . It says a microcode update will arrive in mid - August .
