Technology

Intel’s woes with Core i9 CPUs crashing look worse than we thought – Team Blue really needs to act now to fix this mess

July 12, 2024

Intel’s problems with unstable 13th-gen and 14th-gen high-end CPUs appear to run deeper than we thought, and a new YouTube video diving into these gremlins will do little to calm any fears that buyers of Raptor Lake Core i9 processors (and its subsequent refresh) have.

Level1Techs is the YouTuber in question, who has explored several avenues in an effort to make more sense of the crashing issues with these Intel processors that are affecting some PC gamers and making their lives a misery – more so in some cases than others.

Data taken from game developer crash logs – from two different games – clearly indicates a high prevalence of crashes with the mentioned more recent Intel Core i9 chips (13900K and 14900K).

In fact, for one particular type of error (decompression, a commonly performed operation in games), there was a total of 1,584 that occurred in the databases Level1Techs sifted through, and an alarming 1,431 of those happened with a 13900K or 14900K. Yes – that’s 90% of those decompression errors hitting just two specific CPUs.

As for other processors, the third most prevalent was an old Intel Core i7 9750H (Coffee Lake laptop CPU) – which had a grand total of 11 instances. All AMD processors in total had just 4 occurrences of decompression errors in these game databases.

In case you were thinking that AMD chips might be really underrepresented here, hence that very low figure, well, they’re not – 30% of the CPUs in the database were from Team Red.

These findings alone are a concern, but as ever, just one set of data is hardly the full picture. What we also don’t know here is that while it appears something is going seriously wonky with these Core i9 CPUs, is it really the fault of the chip? Or, as Intel has pointed out previously, does the blame lie with motherboards and their settings? (Intel has issued some advice issued in this regard).

However, the YouTuber also brings up another point here: namely that data centers are noticing these issues with Core i9s. Even 13900K and 14900K processors in W680 motherboards – which are built for stability, so you can’t blame any issues on low quality components – are experiencing these crashes. Neither are these boards built or used for overclocking, so these problems can’t be pinned on overzealous enthusiasts pushing their Intel CPUs too hard.

Level1Techs notes that one data center supplier is charging much more to support the Intel CPU-powered systems it’s deploying, compared to AMD, as it has seen an “unusually high” level of problems that needed to be tackled by taking measures such as disabling efficiency cores – or even having to replace chips entirely. So, support for these Intel Core i9s now has a hefty premium attached.

The data center provider notes that 12900K chips were not problematic like this, and that “something isn’t right with the 13900K and 14900K” in short. Even after CPU replacements have been carried out, the issues don’t seem fully resolved, the company the YouTuber spoke to pointed out.

Game servers powered by these Core i9 chips are also crashing more, leading the developers to fear they might lose players who get frustrated and blame the game, or the dev, when the hardware is (seemingly) at fault.

Intel has a Pretty Big Problem – YouTube

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Analysis: The threat of serious reputational damage

As Level1Techs makes clear, the confusion around the causation here is making this a thorny mess. Intel has still not been clear about the root cause, even though the company has offered various advice as already noted – and also issued a microcode update to tune Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost with these processors (apparently not the root problem – but at least part of the issues here).

Yes, we get that this is evidently a complex issue, but Intel really needs to act more definitively to pin it down. With data like this from Level1Techs coming to the fore, you can be sure we’ll see further analysis along these lines soon enough, so the time for Intel to act is now – before real reputational damage sets in.

One anonymous motherboard maker is already airing fears that this whole episode is going to put people off Intel’s next-gen Arrow Lake CPUs, and as the public perception around this debacle seemingly worsens, that only amplifies these concerns.

Okay, so we don’t want to jump to conclusions on what is happening with these Core i9s – but something’s clearly wrong, and enthusiast buyers of these CPUs will be fretting about their expensive purchase at this point. Because another key aspect that the YouTuber’s data indicates is that these errors and crashes appear to get worse as time goes on – a scary prospect if it really pans out like this.

Trust in Intel is going to fade rapidly if this isn’t tackled in a more thorough manner than Team Blue has managed so far, and that’ll leave Arrow Lake in a very tricky spot as it launches – and tries to secure its place in our ranking of the best CPUs against an apparently strong next-gen Ryzen rival.

At the very least, Intel should be giving out firm assurances that if Core i9 buyers do have a problematic CPU, it will be replaced, no questions asked – but this is something else we’re not seeing. And again, reticence on that front only pours fuel on the flames of the idea that this is a bigger problem than we all first imagined. We’ve contacted Intel for comment on the claims raised by the video, and will update this story when we hear back.

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