Intel's 13th and 14th Gen Core i9 processors "elevated operating voltage" fiasco in a nutshell (Updated)

(This article was originally published on 5 Aug and has been updated with additional details from Intel on the warranty extension program)

Intel’s issues with its 14th Gen Core i9 processors, particularly the flagship i9-14900K series crashing and being unstable with PC games, are well-documented by now. We’ve covered how these crashes are linked to an “elevated voltage” issue, and how the company is urgently working on a microcode patch that it aims to release this month. Intel has also said that these instability problems are limited to the 13th and 14th Gen desktop CPUs, and the mobile CPUs from the same generation are not impacted.

If you’re only catching up on the situation now, here's a quick timeline of the instability issue:

December 2022

• The first instances of Out of Video Memory issues on 13th Gen Core i9 CPUs were reported a few months after Intel and NVIDIA launched the 13th Gen and GeForce RTX 40 series CPUs and GPUs, respectively. (Source: Reddit)
• It’s worth noting that there wasn't any conclusive evidence available at the time as to what caused the issues.

January to December 2023

• Game crashing occurrences were reported in the thousands by owners of 13th and 14th Gen Core i9 processors on Steam community forums and Reddit, with AAA games running on Unreal Engine – such as Returnal and Hogwarts Legacy - most affected.  

February 2024

• Coverage from mainstream media starts pouring in after various tech media reported on the issue.

March 2024

• Tech communities such as ROG forums discovered that underclocking and undervolting the CPUs could result in better stability, although this is not a cure-all solution.

April 2024

• NVIDIA cleared itself by issuing a formal statement that the stability issues caused by Intel’s CPUs and not its GPUs. This is significant because it shows that NVIDIA has done its own tests and has pointed its finger directly at Intel.
• Intel finally announced an official investigation into the reports of instability issues affecting 13th and 14th Gen CPUs.
• Motherboard manufacturers like ASUS and Gigabyte swiftly introduced "Baseline" power profiles in new BIOS updates, which reduced power limits on Core i9 13900K and i9-14900K CPUs. This update has the unwanted effect of a big drop in CPU performance.

May 2024

• In a statement provided to Germain tech site , Intel recommends motherboard manufacturers to ship Intel Default Settings in their boards’ BIOS by default – and not their customized settings.

June 2024

• Intel says it discovered a bug within its eTVB microcode for the 13th and 14th Gen processors.
• Motherboard makers quickly rolled out a new BIOS with the new microcode fix.

July 2024

• Australia-based Indie developer studio Alderon Games claims “Intel is selling defective 13th/14th Gen CPUS”, migrates all of its servers to AMD processors and says they “experience 100 times fewer crashes compared to Intel CPUs that were found to be defective.
• In a statement to Digital Trends, Intel says that its 13th and 14th Gen mobile CPUs are not affected by the same instability issues as the desktop variants
• Intel confirms in a statement that elevated operating voltages were the root cause of the instability issues. They planned to issue a new microcode fix to their partners by mid-August.

August 2024

• Intel announced it will extend 13th and 14th Gen Core retail CPU warranties by two years in response to chip instability issues.

And so, here we are.

In the meantime, the blue team has advised owners of not just the i9-14900K, but also those using the previous gen 13th Gen Core i9-13900K (or any Intel users experiencing frequent game crashes or instability issues), to update their motherboard’s BIOS as soon as possible to prevent their chips from suffering irreversible damage.

These updates would add an Intel Baseline Profile (not to be confused with the previous “Baseline Profile” fix that motherboard manufacturers rolled out earlier) that when enabled, would apply stock power limits to the CPU. As mentioned in the timeline above, this will undoubtedly impact performance. But by how much? I ran a few gaming benchmarks using ASUS’ newest available BIOS firm update for the ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WiFi II motherboard. This firmware in question is “Version 1402”, and according to the download page, is "Updated with microcode 0x125 to ensure eTVB operates within Intel specifications”.

I’ve only focused on testing with 1080p, as lower resolutions are more CPU driven. I have also only focused on three games, due to time constraints but they should give a good gauge on how the CPUs will perform in most games post-firmware update.

As you can see in the chart below, it’s certainly not looking good for Intel users.

Across all games, the drop in performance in the new firmware varies but Cyberpunk 2077 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider have the worst drop-off in framerates for both the i9-14900K and i9-13900K.

The negative impact isn’t just limited to the flagship CPUs. I ran the same tests on the Core i5-13600K CPU and the drop-off in framerates are consistent with the high-end processors, although the performance gaps aren’t as wide – the difference in Metro Exodus is negligible even.

It’s hard to say if Intel’s upcoming microcode fix coming later this month will put the performance back into the affected CPUs, but I’ll be sure to run the same tests again and update this story. Fingers crossed.

So, what does all this mean for Intel?

Coming off the back of a poor Q2 earnings report and a huge retrenchment exercise, the 13th and 14th Gen Core i9 processors fiasco only makes matter worse for Intel. It’s also an absolute PR nightmare for its upcoming 15th Gen Arrow Lake desktop CPUs and one wonders how this whole episode could impact the sales of its next-gen CPUs. PC enthusiasts and gamers who are used to an Intel platform have every right to be less confident now, and AMD can certainly do some serious damage to Intel now with its Ryzen 9000 series processors that will be available at retail later this month.

It's a terrible time to be at Intel now.

Update (06/08/24):

Intel has clarified that the two (2) year warranty extension – from date of purchase, up to a maximum of five (5) years - covers the following 13th/14th Gen desktop boxed/tray CPUs:

Warranty extension applies to new and previously purchased processors, if they are one of the Intel Core 13th/14th Gen SKUs listed above. This warranty coverage applies to all customers globally.

More importantly, Intel is also saying customers who have experienced these instability symptoms on their 13th and/or 14th Gen desktop processors but were unsuccessful in prior RMAs, to reach out to Intel Customer Support for further assistance and remediation.

Source: Intel

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