Earlier, Igor’s Lab reported (via a leak from internal communications) that Intel may have identified the root cause of the issue causing premature failures and crashes on several Core i9 processors, but the chipmaker has denied the claims, Tom’s Hardware confirms.
No Fix For Core i9 In Sight
Igor’s report cited the internal documents claiming the cause of the issue was “an incorrect value in microcode algorithm associated with the eTVB feature.” Excerpts of the report points to a shift of “minimum operating voltage” due to “cumulative exposure to elevated core voltages.” The report also mandated all motherboard vendors to release BIOS fixes by July 19, 2024.
Intel has provided an official statement to the publication regarding the latest developments of the issue:
“Contrary to recent media reports, Intel has not confirmed root cause and is continuing, with its partners, to investigate user reports regarding instability issues on unlocked Intel Core 13th and 14th generation (K/KF/KS) desktop processors. The microcode patch referenced in press reports fixes an eTVB bug discovered by Intel while investigating the instability reports. While this issue is potentially contributing to instability, it is not the root cause.”
To give you some context, eTVB (enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost) is a feature that is specific to Core i9 processors that boosts the processors beyond the stock limits, but there are thermal and power requirements to be met in order to activate this feature. This is useful for single-core workloads, especially games that often benefit from high clock speeds.
So far, motherboard vendors have pushed BIOS updates that enables a stopgap fix with “baseline profiles”, though that comes at a cost of performance in certain cases. The issue has remained for several months at this point, with Intel yet to produce a reliable fix.
Pokdepinion: Must be very frustrating for Core i9 owners out there with seemingly no end in sight.
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