Intel processors crashing Unreal engine games (and others)

Abwx · Apr 30, 2024

There were times when real and strict enginering rules were applied, that meant
10% voltage margin and also 10% frequency margin, so the higher binned chips still had 10% higher frequency capability while being more or less stable.

With 1-2GHz CPUs this amounted to a mere 100-200MHz frequency uplift for the most expensive part, sometime a little more and those 10% were left to the overclockers at their own risks, nowadays with 5GHz+ CPUs 10% is a lot of megahertz and both Intel and AMD started to grab this margin, it could work or it couldnt when the last % margin is moneyed for a few bucks more.

Goop_reformed · Apr 30, 2024

Perhaps this is why Mlid and the likes were saying arrow lake has huge ipc uplift. Xd

KompuKare · Apr 30, 2024

Igor's not mincing any words.
Calls it the Ryzen effect (i.e. Intel panicking):

https://www.igorslab.de/en/crash-landing-with-announcement-intel-paints-the-specs-just-as-they-need-them-and-disregards-its-own-specifications/

In the video - for those who understand German and don't get dizzy listening to him - he basically thinks any CPUs which no longer can keep their previous frequencies even after "just" running "stock" are basically broken and on their last legs.

igor_kavinski · Apr 30, 2024

I have the perfect solution for you, Intel. Cut prices in half, own your mistake, do trouble-free RMAs and promise to do better next time. Simple. Sometimes humility is the best course of action to overcome misfortune.

DAPUNISHER · Apr 30, 2024

KompuKare said:
Igor's not mincing any words.
Calls it the Ryzen effect (i.e. Intel panicking):

https://www.igorslab.de/en/crash-landing-with-announcement-intel-paints-the-specs-just-as-they-need-them-and-disregards-its-own-specifications/

In the video - for those who understand German and don't get dizzy listening to him - he basically thinks any CPUs which no longer can keep their previous frequencies even after "just" running "stock" are basically broken and on their last legs.

Until October 2022, i.e. the launch of Raptor Lake, the 188 watts for the PL2 were also set in the baseline. And that’s exactly where Gigabyte has corrected this value again with its current BIOS.

Well that explains Gigabyte's methodology.

DrMrLordX · Apr 30, 2024

DAPUNISHER said:
From a user over at PCMR this morning -

Has he tried just turning off MCE and setting PL2 to 180W? Seems to work for just about everyone, even though performance tanks.

DAPUNISHER said:
I recommended they RMA.

Are they going to get a refund, or a replacement? And if they do get a refund, what do they do with the board etc.? It's not like a replacement part is (necessarily) going to do any better.

DAPUNISHER · Apr 30, 2024

DrMrLordX said:
Has he tried just turning off MCE and setting PL2 to 180W? Seems to work for just about everyone, even though performance tanks.

Are they going to get a refund, or a replacement? And if they do get a refund, what do they do with the board etc.? It's not like a replacement part is (necessarily) going to do any better.

They posted back

So I researched a little more and I read somewhere that maybe updating the Bios would solve this problem. I know that updating the Bios is not something you should do every time but since I was desperate and wanted to try everything before RMA I decided to do it. I found the most recent Bios for my MB where funnily enough even the description suggests that it might help compatibility with some games and downloaded it. I installed it with thankfully no problems and tried Halo MCC on steam which previously crashed on me and now it worked perfectly. I will try some other games just to be sure but in case someone else has the same problem I did try updating the Bios.

Did that leave you as confused as me? If they knew about the fail safes in the first post, why did they have to do another query to learn about the new bios with the fail safes? I decided to leave it at that. Based on what Igor's Lab is saying, the CPU is nerfed and should be RMA'd. But if that user is happy with the bios fix, carry on I guess.

Mopetar · Apr 30, 2024

S'renne said:
Is this what this forum is like now, just joining the hate train without any meaningful replies

Hate train? I think that's going a bit far for over a bad pun and some silly jokes that are obvious hyperbole.

I don't even care that it's possible to run an Intel CPU this way and generally think it's interesting to see extreme overclocks and how far technology can be pushed. I was being genuine in that I hope Intel doesn't just make a snap decision to make it impossible to unlock this kind of performance for those who want to and accept the inherent risk of flying a bit closer to the sun.

My only real gripe is that users who may have no intention of doing it may wind up doing it with out of the box settings. It's never fun to have a component fail, but this is something that seems like it could have been prevented.

DAPUNISHER · May 1, 2024

HUB on twitter concisely laying things out.

Buildzoid - Here's a possibility: Intel cooks up a "spec" that gets all the unstable CPUs to be stable again(at the cost of some performance) and starts denying the RMAs for them.

I don't see that happening. It'd be gasoline on the fire. Sticking present owners with either subpar or degraded CPUs would not end well for them.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1785431163311702288

WIndows - Yo dawg you are out of video memory!

Nvidia - No way dawg! It's your CPU!

Intel - Ain't me dawg! It's your mobo!

Mobo makers to Intel - Is this your knife in my back?

S'renne · May 1, 2024

DAPUNISHER said:
HUB on twitter concisely laying things out.

I don't see that happening. It'd be gasoline on the fire. Sticking present owners with either subpar or degraded CPUs would not end well for them.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1785431163311702288

WIndows - Yo dawg you are out of video memory!

Nvidia - No way dawg! It's your CPU!

Intel - Ain't me dawg! It's your mobo!

Mobo makers to Intel - Is this your knife in my back?

The confusion arc

igor_kavinski · May 1, 2024

Could this be a solution?

KompuKare · May 1, 2024

igor_kavinski said:
Could this be a solution?

View attachment 98204

At a half glance I though that's a fancy looking PSU!

Although in principle the idea of a 400mm fan is good. Ultra low RPM for super quiet - might need gearing down to spin slow enough, or to get the blades to even turn.

igor_kavinski · May 1, 2024

I wonder when Dyson will design a PC case variant with their bladeless turbojet fan tech.

DrMrLordX · May 1, 2024

igor_kavinski said:
Could this be a solution?

I would much rather have that than a glass side panel for my case. My old Thor v2 has a similar fan.

IGBT · May 2, 2024

"There are many theories on the instability problems, and many believe it comes down to the amount of power these chips can consume. Unlike AMD, Intel does not have strict guidelines on power consumption for its desktop processors, instead letting its board partners decide what power limits to give the processors. This has given Intel a reputation of late for having extremely hot and power-hungry chips, with its latest core i9 chips capable of drawing over 400W of power in the right (or wrong) environment." https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...-4FD9-A97C-49DD86C5D60B&utm_source=SmartBrief

Ranulf · May 2, 2024

DrMrLordX said:
I would much rather have that than a glass side panel for my case. My old Thor v2 has a similar fan.

No doubt. I miss some of those old case designs. All about rgb and no 5.25 bays. But now we need all that free space in cases for 360mm rads to cool these Intel chips at 250+ watts.

igor_kavinski · May 2, 2024

DAPUNISHER said:
WIndows - Yo dawg you are out of video memory!

Nvidia - No way dawg! It's your CPU!

Intel - Ain't me dawg! It's your mobo!

Mobo makers to Intel - Is this your knife in my back?

What a terse and apt description of this whole issue!

You, Sir, are a comedic poet!

Ranulf · May 2, 2024

From the intel reddit HUB video thread on this, this poster has had two bad chips on a b760 mobo:

Had 2 RMAs with 14900K on ASUS TUF b760m. Same thing, CPU degrades in 2 months and becomes unstable. I have collected some advices where I could:

Update bios and activate BIP (intel safe profile)

Long P1 = 125W (253W, depends on your package)

Short P2 = 253W

current max 307A (my BIP set as 280A. Asus knows something?)

Turn off ASUS enhancements (some boards have it as Asus Performance enhancements, others as multicore enhancements)

Temp should be about 70c with cinebench/hwinfo64. If higher upgrade cooling (or reduce P1 and P2, especially P2)

current protection limits (CEP) should be enabled

I'll see how long it'll last this time. My next CPU will be AMD.

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/1cf9b4m/hardware_unboxed_intel_cpus_are_crashing_its

DAPUNISHER · May 3, 2024

Twitter is blowing up on this story. This one is getting ugly.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786026159270224295

Buildzoid is on the warpath -

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786021391864631575

Seems like the social media agents don't have any good sloganeering for this one. Nothing but finger pointing so far. Usually by now there would be talking points disseminated around the message boards and social media platforms. A narrative they could all adhere to, but all they have so far is the Spiderman meme and that backfired spectacularly. see what I did there

EDIT: Excuse me, the talking points include deflection as we have seen right here in this thread. One of the shills responded to Buildzoid with the AMDip nonsense they have been pushing ineffectually for years now. Homie was having none of it.

Ranulf · May 3, 2024

I just saw the wccftech story too. This is definately not good news for Intel. This tester also reports problems with 660/760 boards like the reddit user I posted earlier.

The tester is the owner of a studio that buys several CPUs for their own needs. In invoices shared by the tester, it is revealed that he has bought and tested at least 100s of Intel Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K CPUs and it looks like almost all of the chips he acquired had some sort of issue in terms of stability. Motherboards used by the studio include ASUS's Z790, B760, Z690 and B660 boards.

The software he runs requires each CPU and PC to pass through a certain variety of tests and at the Auto profile set in the ASUS motherboards, the majority of CPUs fail this test and have to be resold. Based on these tests, the tester determined a probability rate respective to the CPU's stability & it is shared below:

Intel Core i9-13900K "AUTO -253W" - 40/50% (4/5 out of 10 units stable)

Intel Core i9-13900K "Reduced Loadline" - 50-60% (5/6 out of 10 units stable)

Intel Core i9-13900K "B760/B660 Board" - 60-70% (6/7 out of 10 units stable)

Intel Core i9-14900K "AUTO - 253W" - 20% (2 out of 10 units stable)

Intel Core i9-14900K "Reduced Loadline" - ~30% (3 out of 10 units stable)

Intel Core i9-14900K "B760/B660 Board" - 40% (4 out of 10 units stable)

So the out-of-the-box experience on an Intel 13th and 14th Gen CPUs is bad. It is reported that the chips might work fine for a week or a little over a month but usually end up producing stability issues.

Direct link:

Tester Reveals Only 5 out of 10 Core i9-13900K & 2 out of 10 Core i9-14900K CPUs Stable In Auto Profile, Intel & Board Partners Yet To Determine Cause of Stability Issues

Intel's Core i9-14900K & Core i9-13900K CPUs are largedly affected by instability issues as one tester has revealed by testings 100s of chips.

wccftech.com

poke01 · May 3, 2024

DAPUNISHER said:
Twitter is blowing up on this story. This one is getting ugly.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786026159270224295

Buildzoid is on the warpath -

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786021391864631575

Seems like the social media agents don't have any good sloganeering for this one. Nothing but finger pointing so far. Usually by now there would be talking points disseminated around the message boards and social media platforms. A narrative they could all adhere to, but all they have so far is the Spiderman meme and that backfired spectacularly. see what I did there

EDIT: Excuse me, the talking points include deflection as we have seen right here in this thread. One of the shills responded to Buildzoid with the AMDip nonsense they have been pushing ineffectually for years now. Homie was having none of it.

I am reminded of this story.

Ex-Intel Engineer: Skylake QA Problems Drove Apple Away

A former Intel engineer claims Skylake's QA process drove Apple to build its own CPUs. It seems unlikely this was the sole determining factor.

www.extremetech.com

“The quality assurance of Skylake was more than a problem. It was abnormally bad. We were getting way too much citing for little things inside Skylake. Basically our buddies at Apple became the number one filer of problems in the architecture. And that went really, really bad. When your customer starts finding almost as much bugs as you found yourself, you're not leading into the right place.”

igor_kavinski · May 3, 2024

Intel is paying for hurting the wrong employees by terminating them. This is karma.

I hope Alder Lake is fine, though @Hulk did have his 12900K degrade on him, IIRC.

Markfw · May 3, 2024

I caught hell from exist50 by telling him my 12700k was taking 300 watts under avx-512. He said that was outside of Intel spec, and impossible. I feel this is proof that I was right, even though I know it was, as thats what the kill-a-watt said !

Edit: I feel vindicated !

DAPUNISHER · May 3, 2024

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786022548804637109

He keeps pushing his theory about denying the warranty. Can anyone elucidate on why he has drawn that conclusion? Is there historical precedent for Intel engaging in shenanigans like that? Nothing comes to mind. However, with how often all these companies engage in anti consumer behavior it is nigh impossible to keep track of it all.

Panino Manino · May 3, 2024

Don't think they cite this explosive Chiphell "finding", but the discussion continues within Hardware Unboxed.
They mention the 7800X3D case.

Intel processors crashing Unreal engine games (and others)

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