Intel has yet to provide a definitive fix for the “root cause” of the crashing plaguing its 13th and 14th Gen K-series processors. We extensively covered this in the past, including an account of our troubles with the Core i9-13900KF and an i7-14700KF. Long story short, Intel recommends all customers stick to the “Intel Default Settings” which (in most cases) limits the boost power consumption “PL2” to 253W and the max current to 307A or 400A. However, as reported earlier this week, that doesn’t always help.
The fact there’s no standardized power profile for any Raptor Lake K-series CPUs is frustrating. Your power delivery profile will depend on the motherboard VRM rather than the processor itself. Intel recommends using the highest power profile supported by the motherboard which could be one of the three (Baseline, Performance, and Extreme).
Interestingly, if you switch from the Intel Baseline to “Performance” or “Extreme,” the BIOS warns you of system instability even if the higher profiles are supported by your board. Anyhow, these settings didn’t do much for our unit which failed within two months.
The eTVB (Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost) fix helped improve the stability of our system, greatly reducing the frequency of the crashes, and eliminating the BSODs. We recommend you download the latest BIOS update to implement the same.
Intel has gotten a lot of bad press in the last few months due to this issue. The chipmaker is also offering refunds to users unsatisfied with their replacement units which is rare. It has also resulted in reduced sales of the Raptor Lake-S desktop processors, with most gamers switching (or buying) AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
According to ZDNet Korea, AMD Ryzen CPUs account for more than 55% of desktop chips sold in the Korean DIY market. Although the impact of this switch will be most visible in Q2 2024 numbers, we can see a shift towards Ryzen desktop parts in Mercury’s Q1 numbers too.
At Mindfactory (Germany), AMD Ryzen accounts for ~90% of the processors sold, with Intel dropping to a paltry 10%. Sales of the Blue chips have gradually decreased through the first half of 2024.
Similar sentiments can be felt among Steam users, where AMD’s CPU market share has reached nearly 35%, the highest we’ve ever reported.
On Amazon, only 3 out of the top-selling CPUs are Intel parts, while the rest are Ryzen 7000, and 5000 series SKUs.
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