The case of unstable 13th and 14th generation Intel processors is slowly becoming a soap opera. Indeed, Intel called on manufacturers to set the default profile in the BIOS to what was originally internally labeled as “Intel Baseline” / “Intel Performance” / “Intel Extreme” and to do so by the end of May at the latest. Furthermore, Intel did not recommend manufacturers to use “Baseline” for the 13th and 14th generation Core i9 “K” / “KS” series, in other words, it recommends a higher than 188W limit for the most powerful models.
“*Baseline Power Delivery Profiles are not recommended for 13th and 14th Gen K SKU Processors”
Official “Intel Default Settings”
Intel made this recommendation after complaints began to spread from manufacturers about the “Baseline” / 188W PL2 limit setting, which according to reports from Taiwan reduces tau (the amount of time a processor can spend at the PL2 limit before being forced to switch to PL1, here 125W). Let’s recall that for the last few generations, the tau was set to 56 seconds for powerful processors, 28 seconds for 65W, and in practice it was set to infinity for most boards, in other words, the processor did not go from the PL2 limit to the PL1 limit at all.
Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers were somewhat disillusioned with Intel’s approach, saying Intel’s proposed solution was “useless” and “bullshit” that would make the Core i9-14900K a “three-second hero”. Intel seems to have responded quickly to these complaints, recommending “Performance” or “Extreme” profiles for the higher models, which account for a PL2 of 253 to 320 watts.
The original criticism from the manufacturers may be related to the fact that the reduction of energy limits does not have a significant effect on stability (it only slightly reduces the frequency of instability manifestations) and is basically not worth the drastic limitation of performance by the “Baseline” profile:
Recall that the Intel Baseline profile setting (188W PL2) was already tested and caused a 28% drop in performance. In the CineBench R23 test, the Core i9-14900K reached 28.x thousand points in this configuration, falling to the level where the Core i9-12900KS, which is two generations older, or the Core i7-13700K from the previous generation, Ryzen 9 5950X from 2020 (!) or the current Ryzen 9 7950X with a 65W limitation.
The 253W PL2 limit proclaimed by Intel will finally be addressed. While until recently the 253W limit stated in the official specifications was turned off by default for most motherboards, and manufacturers set a 188W limit (“Baseline”) in a number of new BIOSes, now it is likely that the specification will finally be reached, which Intel officially stated, but was not practically used in real life.
Tags: Intel manufacturers Implement Intel Default profile BIOS
