Intel has provided an official statement on the 14th & 13th Gen CPU instability issue matter saying that it's better to use its "Default Settings" in BIOS.
Don't Use Motherboard Makers "Baseline Default" Profile, "Intel Default Settings" Are The Official Solution To 14th & 13th Gen Instability Issues
It's been months since the 14th & 13th Gen CPU instability issues caught the limelight of the tech media and now, Intel has finally offered an official statement which seems to be a total reversal for motherboard makers who have already rolled out their own BIOS profiles to mitigate the issues.
In the official statement provided to HardwareLuxx, it is stated that while motherboard makers are rolling out their own "Intel Baseline Profile" or "Baseline Default" BIOS profiles to try to eliminate the issue, that is not the best choice. These profiles are not the same as the "Intel Default Settings" which the company is recommending to use over the Baseline default profiles. The reason is quite simple, older baseline default profiles are based on older power delivery guidance provided to the partners by Intel and since we know the older profiles aren't as good at ensuring stability, Intel has now provided motherboard partners with new recommendations that they can implement in the BIOS.
Several motherboard manufacturers have released BIOS profiles labeled 'Intel Baseline Profile'. However, these BIOS profiles are not the same as the 'Intel Default Settings' recommendations that Intel has recently shared with its partners regarding the instability issues reported on 13th and 14th gen K SKU processors.
These 'Intel Baseline Profile' BIOS settings appear to be based on power delivery guidance previously provided by Intel to manufacturers describing the various power delivery options for 13th and 14th Generation K SKU processors based on motherboard capabilities.
Intel is not recommending motherboard manufacturers to use 'baseline' power delivery settings on boards capable of higher values.
Intel's recommended 'Intel Default Settings' are a combination of thermal and power delivery features along with a selection of possible power delivery profiles based on motherboard capabilities.
Intel recommends customers to implement the highest power delivery profile compatible with each individual motherboard design as noted in the table below:
Intel also asks motherboard makers against the use of "Baseline Default" profiles on higher-end motherboards such as the Z790 and Z690 series. This more or less eliminates the need to buy a high-end motherboard since you can barely use the extra OC or tuning capabilities as you'd have to set it to default limits anyway to ensure maximum stability. A few days ago, we reported how PC users with higher-end motherboards were more prone to the issue of running a high-end "Z" series motherboard versus the mainstream "H" or "B" series offerings.
This means that motherboard makers will likely roll back their existing "Baseline Default" profiles & will now have to release newer "Intel Default" BIOS for their respective motherboards. So far, ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, MSI, and Biostar, have all released new BIOS profiles with Biostar possibly being the only ones who are following Intel's baseline guidance.
Intel still has not made it clear if these profiles are all that's needed to ensure stability on 14th & 13th gen CPUs but based on my own workarounds, I think this might be the only official fix.
Gigabyte has removed the latest bios for INTEL BASELINE support that's dated 23 APR 2024.
ASUS's ones are still up. pic.twitter.com/m5a5ZuMfon— UNIKO's Hardware 🌏 (@unikoshardware) May 8, 2024
To ensure stability, the CPUs will need to be set to lower power limits resulting in some serious performance downgrades which make them less competitive against AMD's Ryzen lineup. So whether you're willing to sacrifice performance for stability will be entirely up to you.
