After being exposed for artificially boosting the performance of select 13th and 14th generation processors with bogus power limit plans enforced by AIB vendors, the Intel Corporation continues to fumble as they outright deny RMA requests for faulty Raptor Lake CPUs suffering from severe silicon degradation.
Intel’s reputation, already strained, has taken a significant hit as an increasing number of customers complain about instability issues with select unlocked Core processors. Reports of Raptor Lake CPUs experiencing stability problems in Unreal Engine games became so prevalent that Intel eventually issued a statement, deflecting all accountability onto motherboard vendors.
Both AIB vendors and Intel share the blame. Intel quickly enforced a new and revised “baseline” power plan specification, which seemingly did not exist until the issue was brought to light. It turns out that Intel had turned a blind eye to AIB board partners who were compromising the longevity and lifespan of Raptor Lake CPUs by implementing modified and excessive PL1 and PL2 power limits to boost performance.
The increased power limits resulted in much higher power consumption, causing the CPUs to draw more current and resulting in higher temperatures. Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs were notorious for exceeding 115 degrees Celsius and drawing an insane amount of wattage.
When it comes to silicon-based products, especially those built on denser process nodes, they are highly susceptible to factors such as current, voltage, and temperature.
Running a product beyond its specified factory limits, such as by drawing additional current or increasing voltages and temperatures places significantly more stress on the component. Intel still has yet to come up with a solution to circumvent the laws of thermodynamics unfortunately.
Be that as it may, this increased stress leads to a degraded lifespan resulting in reduced longevity compared to the same product that operates within its recommended parameters. Such overexertion is often done to achieve better benchmark performance, but it ultimately sacrifices the durability of the hardware.
Intel deliberately turned a blind eye to its motherboard vendors boosting voltages and current draw for years. AMD faced a similar issue, resulting in a limited number of Ryzen 7000 series X3D processors spontaneously combusting due to ASUS pushing high SOC voltages under “default” configurations to enhance performance numbers and ASUS’ own marketing.
This debacle caused a PR nightmare for AMD, which had to address the issue by enforcing a standard with motherboard vendors.
In response to the ongoing issues, Intel instructed motherboard vendors to introduce a new baseline power plan BIOS. While this undoubtedly reduced performance, it did little to resolve the overall problem.
Many users continue to experience issues with their 13th and 14th Generation processors because the silicon has degraded to such an extent that even with reduced frequencies and current draw, the processors cannot sustain its core frequencies at its voltage levels.
Naturally, consumers have pressured Intel to replace their faulty CPUs, demanding replacements under RMA. Areej Syed from HardwareTimes disclosed one such incident where Intel denied the RMA for a problematic Core i9-13900KF despite initially offering it. Although Areej previously managed to have his Core i7-14700KF replaced, Intel declined the request for his Core i9 processor.
According to HardwareTimes, the Core i9-13900KF units had a PCIe fault limiting bus utilization. When using the PCIe Gen 5 lanes, the computer would not work and resulted in a BSOD. However, when the interface was changed to PCIe Gen 4 x4, the system became functional, but the bandwidth was significantly compromised.
When Areej Syed brought this issue to Intel, the company replaced the 13th Gen CPU with a brand new unit not once, but twice. However, each replacement quickly encountered problems after just months of usage. The event view logger recorded a staggering 44,242 error events over four months.
Intel denied the RMA request for the second unit despite initially agreeing to a refund. The problem has escalated, and this incident represents just one consumer affected by the issue. Numerous similar cases remain unpublicized, indicating that Intel has not effectively addressed the instability issues, especially regarding “reasonable” RMA requests.
Additionally, data from Level1Techs reveals that Intel’s 13th and 14th Gen CPUs have accounted for a significant portion of error logs in Oodle game telemetry data. Intel was responsible for 1,431 decompression errors out of a total of 1,584 errors over 90 days, over 90.3% of errors logged were on Intel hardware.
AMD, on the other hand, had only four such errors, significantly fewer than Intel. A breakdown reveals that over 70% of Intel’s CPUs were prone to errors compared to just 30% for AMD, highlighting a concerning situation for Intel.
Issues like “Out of Video Memory” errors are also linked to faulty and buggy Intel CPUs. These errors typically occur during the Shader Compilation process, which pushes the chips to their limits and often results in game crashes or, in worse cases, a BSOD.
This issue is not limited to gaming PCs. Data centers deploying these CPUs for game servers have also reported high crash rates, even on motherboards designed for maximum stability. Data centers have noted an increasing rate of errors over time, even with such processors being placed inside expensively reliable W680 motherboards, according to Wendell’s video.
This is particularly fascinating because the W680 chipset is a more legitimate server-oriented solution that typically runs Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs below their specified limits, resulting in lower-than-average power consumption. These systems are usually housed in enclosed environments, which can exacerbate temperature issues.
Additionally, they often use slower-spec ECC registered memory, which puts less strain on the CPU’s integrated memory controller (IMC). Despite the W680 chipset officially supporting CPU overclocking, it’s bizarre that processors are failing on this chipset. While it’s plausible that companies like ASUS might boost CPU power limits on their W680 motherboards, premium server vendors like Supermicro would NEVER do such a thing.
Discussions with data center providers revealed that support incidents for these CPUs have been unusually high, leading to increased support costs and replacement hardware. These stability issues have also impacted multiplayer gaming experiences, with some developers fearing significant losses in player engagement due to frequent server crashes.
One developer estimated a potential $100,000 loss of revenue because gamers will assume the problem lies with the game rather than their high-end PC or the hardware in the game server itself.
As noted by Level1Techs, the lack of clear communication from Intel only exacerbates the problem. While AMD promptly addressed similar issues in the past, Intel has yet to provide a definitive solution or assurance to affected users. Their reputation is suffering as gamers and professional clients alike increasingly regret their purchases.
Gamers and data center operators are left in uncertainty, with many resorting to replacing CPUs or switching to AMD.
One such company making the switch is the small Australian studio “Alderon Games,” developers of “Path of Titans,” a prehistoric MMO survival game that allows players to assume the role of a dinosaur and various other prehistoric animals in a vast world during the Jurassic period.
The game itself is available on all current console platforms and even mobile, in addition to the PC platform. However, you can’t access the game through conventional means like the Steam store; instead, you have to purchase it directly from the Alderon Games website, which is inconvenient.
Path of Titans is built on the Unreal Engine, which has been the most problematic game engine for exposing degraded Intel Core CPUs to stability errors. Despite motherboard vendors releasing revised BIOS updates that reduce frequencies, current draw, and CPU performance, and even microcode updates for Intel processors, Alderon Games has been experiencing instability issues with Raptor Lake processors themselves.
Game development studios are now sharing their troubling experiences, highlighted by Alderon Games revealing significant CPU stability issues leading to crashes and memory corruption. This not only affects their development team but also impacts players of Path of Titans, a game built on Unreal Engine 5, where Intel-based game servers are plagued by frequent crashes due to the instability of the processors themselves.
In a post titled “Intel is selling defective 13-14th Gen CPUs,” the Australian developers assert that to mitigate further damage caused by these issues, they are transitioning their game servers to AMD-based systems. Additionally, they are implementing in-game notifications to alert users about potential processor issues and their direct causes.
Alderon Games concluded after extensive testing that Intel Core processors initially perform well but degrade and fail over time. This is because of AIB board vendors setting an “unlimited” PL2 limit by default, which causes CPUs to draw excessive current for artificial performance boosts, leading to silicon degedation and possibly premature failure.
Alderon Games report a 100% failure rate in their testing pool of CPUs, foreseeing widespread failures among affected Intel CPUs.
Intel’s failure to enforce power limit standards for AIB partners is criticized for exacerbating CPU degradation. Despite BIOS and microcode updates, users continue to report issues, compounded by Intel’s refusal of RMA requests and lack of replacement units.
This controversy has severely damaged consumer trust, particularly as Intel prepares to launch Arrow Lake desktop processors which are speculated to be extremely lackluster, although thanks to this revelation coming to light with subsequent restrained power plans limiting performance it gives Intel all the incentive they need to inflate Arrow Lake’s performance figures by comparing it to Raptor Lake bound to a “baseline profile.”
Consumers have been swindled, they’ve been blatantly lied to by the Intel corporation who willingly allowed your unlocked Core processor to be sacrificed or have its lifespan considerably shortened all in a failed effort to beat AMD Ryzen processors in benchmark performance evaluations and finally as a result of their usury clients and consumers are beginning to take notice and switch to AMD in droves.
