Question Bottom Line Question

[CyclicUser]

I have read through a ton of material on this and am still not sure of the answer.
Is the stability problems of the 13th and 14th gen intel processors a "hardwired" problem?
Will updating the microcode and motherboard bios eliminate the problem?
I bought boxed versions of an I5 13500 and an I7 13700K a couple of years ago.
Due to medical issues I never completed the builds at the time.
I am in remission now and finishing up the builds.
I updated the ME and bios on an Asus h770 board before firing up the I5 13500.
I intend to do the same on an Asus w680 board before firing up the I7 13700K.
Will this ameliorate the problem?
I don't overclock or game.
I'm looking for dependability.

 

[Markfw]

Well, thats hard to say. very likely you may get a few years, but I would not do any more Intel at this time.

 

[alcoholbob]

The problem is two-fold, high default voltages due to poor VID table binning by Intel, leading to accelerated degradation, and also older BIOS's had voltage spikes above 1.55V that was accelerating electromigration even faster.

The new BIOSs only fix the latter, which is the 1.55V+ voltage spikes. But one of the problems with Intel's mitigation is they raised the default voltages even more to deal with degraded CPUs in the 0x12B BIOS. Higher default voltages also means faster degradation in the long run.

If you have a relatively new CPU that hasn't degraded, one of the things you ought to do to preserve your CPU is to undervolt the CPU with a negative adaptive offset, pick somewhere from -75mv to -100mv ideally which most CPUs should be able to easily achieve.

 

[CyclicUser]

The more I research this, the more I understand the heated rhetoric on all the websites.
I'm getting disgusted with all this.
Apparently there was also a manufacturing defect in early 13 gen chips that intel corrected.
However, I can't find where I can find out if my chip was affected.
I have to wait until it fails?
So much for building a dependable computer and relying on it for years.

 

[Ranulf]

Apparently there was also a manufacturing defect in early 13 gen chips that intel corrected.
However, I can't find where I can find out if my chip was affected.

If you mean the oxidization problem, as far as I know, Intel has never officially said what was affected. Some rumors are it was supposedly fixed before it hit production models.

 

[igor_kavinski]

So much for building a dependable computer and relying on it for years.

You will be using the 13700K on a workstation chipset so it should be more reliable. Also, turn off any turbo frequency boosting settings in the BIOS. Set the cores for a fixed clock of 5 GHz for P-cores and 4 or 4.1 GHz for E-cores and you should be fine. Make sure the voltage is clamped not to exceed 1.3V.

I would also recommend using the BeQuiet Light Loop 360 or Liquid Freezer 360 Pro AIO cooler to keep the chip running cool.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I updated the ME and bios on an Asus h770 board before firing up the I5 13500.

I don't think there will be any problem there. That's a chipset meant mostly for office PCs so the crazy boosting behavior is not expected to be there. The chip will run in pretty sedate mode.

 

[CyclicUser]

I thank you all for your responses.
I have been doing a deep dive on the bios on these boards.
I am setting very conservative settings and hoping for the best.
And, of course, full backups.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If you mean the oxidization problem, as far as I know, Intel has never officially said what was affected. Some rumors are it was supposedly fixed before it hit production models.

Incorrect. They did admit it. Of course they downplayed it, but there are sources inside the company that have blown the whistle on it. The guy in charge, resigned/retired around the time the story broke. Some of those CPUs were still on shelves in early 2024.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/2148...bility-faults-voltage-microcode-fix-in-august

You will be using the 13700K on a workstation chipset so it should be more reliable.

Nonsense. Wendell has a video about how they were going belly up in both the Asus and ASRock WS boards running at those conservative settings.

The 13500 is basically Alder Lake, I would not worry too much about that one. If either it or the 13700K are retail boxed, the warranty has been extended to 5 years. If one degrades too much before then they will exchange it with a 14 series SKU.

All of the mitigations will not help CPUs already in use before they were deployed, but the new ones installed on a fully updated board should hold up a lot better.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Nonsense. Wendell has a video about how they were going belly up in both the Asus and ASRock WS boards running at those conservative settings.

True but I'm assuming that after their harsh lesson, Intel may have worked with the mobo vendors to fortify (or neuter, depending on your perspective ) the workstation board BIOS much more than the consumer boards. As long as OP installs the latest BIOS update, I think (logically) that the W680 mobo should be fine. But if he somehow ended up with an oxidized CPU, then it will fail sooner or later.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If one degrades too much before then they will exchange it with a 14 series SKU.

I see multiple users on overclock.net hugging their custom cooled 14900KS PCs and returning to them after trying out the 285K. So one thing seems to be fairly certain: heat degrades the CPU faster otherwise they wouldn't be using a frickin' 14900KS as a daily driver because this beast needs the most voltage to hit its 6.2 GHz boost frequency.