Key Takeaways
- Reports indicate Intel’s 13th and 14th Generation CPUs, particularly i9 models, are prone to crashes.
- Intel believes the issue is related to Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost technology.
- As Intel faces crashing issues, some are considering switching to AMD, with concerns over consumer trust and Intel’s next CPU generation.
If your Intel 13th or 14th Generation Raptor Lake CPU keeps crashing, you’re not alone, and you’re definitely not imagining things. Reports of instability relating to Raptor Lake CPUs are widespread and plaguing Intel users across both laptops and desktops, leading Intel to issue a specific fix to resolve the problem.
What’s Happening to Intel’s 13th and 14th Generation CPUs?
In short, Intel’s high-end i9-13900K and -14900K CPUs keep crashing in a range of situations, with some reports that the frequency of the crashes is causing previously good CPUs to deteriorate.
The Register first reported on the issues hitting 13900K and 14900K CPUs in February 2024, noting that the “problem appears related to the chips’ firmware and clock rates settings.”
However, since then, the issues have continued, leading Alderon Games founder Matthew Cassells to write a blog post titled “Intel is selling defective 13-14th Gen CPUs.” Cassells post noted that the crashes are “confined to the 13th and 14th generation processors” while identifying issues in specific areas, such as its end users, game and community servers, development team hardware, and benchmarking tools.
It’s not just a single game developer highlighting Intel’s CPU woes, either. Intel’s forums are stacked with posts relating to 13th- and 14th-Gen crashes, and there are heaps of Reddit posts across subreddits, including r/Intel, r/Hardware, r/Technology, r/PCMasterRace, and many more.
Furthermore, Level1Techs took a deep dive into the Intel CPU crashes using crash-dump data from two different games and found particularly high instances of crashes hitting the Intel i9-13900K and i9-14900K CPUs.
How Is Intel Fixing the Raptor Lake Crashes?
At the time of writing, Intel hasn’t identified the root cause of the 13th- and 14th-Gen CPU crashes. A leaked internal document seen by Igor’s Lab suggests the problems relate to Intel Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost (eTVB), a Raptor Lake-specific technology that can automatically overclock a CPU past its stated turbo frequency.
As per the leaked document, Intel believed the “Root cause is an incorrect value in a microcode algorithm associated with the eTVB feature,” and issued a request for “all customers to update BIOS to microcode 0x125 or later by 7/19/2024.”
However, despite the microcode fix and BIOS update, crash reports continue. Still, if you’re facing an Intel 13900K or 14900K CPU that keeps crashing, it’s worth checking out how to update your BIOS.
Is It Time to Switch to AMD?
Matthew Cassells post notes that Alderon Games “are swapping all our servers to AMD,” but that it isn’t an outright endorsement of AMD. It’s just what makes the most sense for the company.
Similarly, ZDNET Korea reported:
An official from a domestic corporation of a motherboard manufacturer who requested anonymity explained, “If the stability issue is not clearly resolved, it will increase consumer distrust and reduce sales of Intel’s new desktop PC processor ‘Arrow Lake’ scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter.”
With AMD’s long-awaited Zen 5 architecture finally here and its new Ryzen 9000-Series CPUs launching on July 31, 2024, it’s a troubling time for Intel.