Intel commented on the case of unstable processors, the fault lies with the motherboard manufacturers

Unstable processors Intel are a big topic lately. So far, all indications are that they are the problem [minimálně částečně] responsible motherboard manufacturers who did not set the powerful Core i7-13700K/14700K and Core i9-13900K/14900K processors in the default automatic mode to the default values, but to overclocked beyond the official Intel specifications. Such an unlimited overclocked mode would not be a problem at all, if it was not activated by default without a clear enough warning. The unanswered question is how much this “bothered” Intel and how much it supported it. He certainly didn’t mind the good test results, and we probably wouldn’t be surprised if his official benchmarks on these boards were also taken using unlimited modes.

As for the final product that was affected by the incorrect operation, i.e. the motherboard, the manufacturers of these motherboards were in charge of setting it up. And they set them to values ​​outside the standard specifications, which is something that the customer probably wouldn’t expect much in the “default” automatic mode. Intel is now issuing an official preliminary statement on the matter, saying essentially the same thing.

He now said that the problem really seems to be related to the fact that the processors were running at non-standard values, i.e. outside the range of values ​​specified by Intel. Most of the problems were observed on basic overclocking boards, which by default disable various thermal and power protection processes to limit the long-term operation of the processor at too high a voltage and frequency. For example, motherboard manufacturers took the following steps outside of the basic specifications:

• deactivation of Current Excursion Protection (CEP)
• activation of the IccMax Unlimited bit
• disabling Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) and/or Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost (eTVB)
• deactivation of C-states
• using the Windows Ultimate Performance profile
• increasing the limit of PL1 and PL2 beyond the values ​​recommended by Intel

Intel further said that it requires motherboard manufacturers to offer default settings to users that reflect the default values ​​set by Intel. It also strongly recommends that manufacturers notify users of any non-standard settings. The results of the entire investigation will be published during May 2024.

We would have motherboard manufacturers, and although many people will be against it, we can agree with Intel here. Processors have their own specs and motherboards didn’t run them on those specs out of the box. That is a fact. The BIOSes were set so that the processors ran on non-standard settings. But what about Intel itself? To what extent was he involved? How much guilt falls on his head? That’s a question we don’t know the answer to, and it will be interesting to see how motherboard manufacturers react to Intel’s announcement. Will we learn that he actively supported them in this? It is basically certain that Intel probably didn’t mind the very good results in the tests and basically only started objecting to the practice after stability problems started to appear (and did not draw attention to the problem in the past, which was also indicated by the fact that the editors at tests regularly received consumption values ​​that they should never have achieved).