The first BIOSes with a microcode fix to stop the degradation of Intel Raptor Lake processors have been released
It looks like the most important thing to happen in the PC industry this year are the widespread issues of Intel Raptor Lake processors with instability and game crashes caused by gradual physical damage to the chips due to high voltages that leads to irreversible degradation. The microcode patches, which will hopefully stop the CPUs from dying – the CPUs for which it is not too late already that is – have finally started to appear.
As a recap, in June, Intel announced discovering a partial source of the failures involving improper control of Thermal Velocity Boost, and then in July the company announced that they believe to have found the root cause, which is exposure of the chip to high voltages, quite possibly especially during rapid switching between idle and boost clocks (so the CPUs are ironically getting damaged when there isn’t a high sustained load on them with the infamous extreme power consumption contrary to what most people probably suspected).
The first partial cause has been fixed by microcode 0x125, while the second and main issue that is considered the actual root cause of the problems is to be solved (or at least mostly – the term “mitigation” is used instead of “fix”, and it is probably not yet certain to what extent will it be effective in the long term) by another microcode fix. This second microcode update should be designated 0x129, and the key part of this news is that this update has just started to enter distribution to end users.
BIOSes for the first Z790 boards
MSI and Asus were the first to release BIOS updates with this microcode, with MSI being a bit more direct and publishing an official message announcing the availability of the 0x129 microcode patch update for the first group of selected Intel Z790 platform motherboards:
- MEG Z790 GODLIKE MAX
- MEG Z790 ACE MAX
- MPG Z790 CARBON MAX WIFI II
- MPG Z790 CARBON WIFI
- MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI
- Z790MPOWER
Updates from Asus are a bit less “public”, for start they were announced on the company’s forum by a BIOS developer tram member, who also provided the details for downloading these updates in the same place. Nevertheless, this is also an official release, although it is also in beta phase (just like MSI’s BIOSes). The Asus updates are also initially targetting only the first group of motherboards with the Z790 chipset so far, but it’s a good number of them nonetheless.
BIOSes for other motherboards with 700 and 600 series chipsets will follow gradually. Eventually BIOSes with the fix should hopefully be available for all LGA 1700 socket models. Other motherboard manufacturers will also likely be quick to join in. However, we also need these BIOS updates to be supplied by OEMs like Acer, HP, Asus, Dell and so on who use specific custom boards. It’s in their interest to provide it, so owners will surely get to see it from them as well, but these companies will likely take a bit longer.
The fix probably reduces performance a bit, but don’t avoid it
When this update is available for the motherboard or computer you are using with a 13th or 14th generation Intel Core desktop processor, we recommend that you do not delay the installation (flashing) of the update, so that you avoid processor getting affected crashes. Of course, this only applies to users of the Intel platform and the LGA 1700 socket processors in question.
We can only hope that the fixes in voltage management and limits in VID that Intel is implementing in the patch will actually be able to stop this “plague” killing the Raptor Lake processors. This is something that is not yet proven with certainty, as the CPU failures are not caused by any simple bug in the code, but by the complex functioning of the entire CPU power supply system, which may not be easy to change with 100% effectiveness. We’ll likely get more certainty about the effectiveness of these fixes will probably only with time.
Initial tests suggest that the fix may not lead to any significant performance degradation, but it still may slow down the processor by a few percent in some cases. The first part (0x125) that includes TVB and voltage fixes may reduce the real boost clock speed of Core i9 processors in some tasks, while the second major/general fix (0x129) may also affect Core i7 and i9 processors.
It is possible that the speed of the boost clocks ramping up when the processor comes out of idle at the beginning of a load slows down a bit. This would mainly affect benchmarks that are very short, or tasks where the workload is not continuous. Given that the alternative to applying the fixes is the CPU eventually getting destroyed, this possible performance decrease is something one has to simply accept, instead of any wondering if it may be worth skipping the fix over.
However, it is a real point against Intel when considering the CPUs. If you’re currently deciding between getting one of these processors and an alternative (Ryzen processor from AMD…), keep in mind that Raptor Lake processors arenow significantly slower than what old reviews from the time of release show – for example, the multi-threaded performance of Core i9 models in tests like Cinebench has dropped significantly: they used to beat Ryzen 9 7950X, it’s the opposite today. That’s due to these fixes but also due to earlier updates that reduced the default power consumption and performance of the processors. Intel now dictates to board manufacturers that default power limits must be set to the recommended (listed by Intel) specifications, which has actually not been the case at all, until now, as vast majority of motherboards kept overriding the specifications to get higher performance.
It’s worth noting that the impact of these very latest patches on the performance of the 13th and 14th generation Intel Core CPUs is not yet included in latest processors reviews, including reviews of the now-released AMD Ryzen 9000 processors. So even if such reviews re-ran Intel benchmarks scores prior to publication, the results may not properly reflect the “definitive” performance these processors will have once the dust settles.
Tip: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X: Slightly improved hexa-core once again (CPU Review)
The fixes are in beta for now, more updates may come later
Intel originally stated that it was targeting a release of this fix to their partners sometime around mid-August, after which the motherboard vendors’ own testing cycle would probably follow for a while before the fix would be released to end users. We therefore expected BIOS fixes for specific boards to start appearing in the second half of the month. However, Intel and the motherboard manufacturers have apparently decided they’d rather provide beta versions of these BIOSes as soon as possible, as the degradation of processors in users’ PCs is still ongoing until the updates are released. So in the end these fixes are going to be available earlier. However, we recommend replacing the beta BIOS update with the final non-beta version when it eventually becomes available for your board.
Tip: Intel extends warranty on problematic Raptor Lake processors
In general, it will now be advisable for owners of Raptor Lake processors to install any board BIOS updates that will be released for their board model (although you probably don’t need to apply all the beta versions once you have the initial fix in). This is because the voltage management in the processors will quite possibly be receiving further continuous tweaking, and other future updates over time may further improve the stability of the processors and their chances of living to retirement.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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