Intel says "Buy an overclockable motherboard that disables Current Excursion Protection, Set PL1 to 4000 amps, and your i9-14900KS may burn out"

[sounds]

Summary

Igor's lab obtained a preliminary statement from Intel:

 

Quotes

Quote

"While the root cause has not yet been identified, Intel has observed the majority of reports of this issue are from users with unlocked/overclock capable motherboards, ... Intel has observed 600/700 Series chipset boards often set BIOS defaults to disable thermal and power delivery safeguards designed to limit processor exposure to sustained periods of high voltage and frequency."

 

My thoughts

What can users expect then? This seems like Intel trying to pass the buck. In Ars Technica's own words:

Quote

Intel releases these K-series chips to satisfy overclockers and tinkerers, but it's clear that there just isn't a lot of performance headroom left in these chips since Intel is already pushing their clock speeds and voltages to squeeze out generational performance improvements.

 

Sources

https://www.igorslab.de/en/intel-releases-the-13th-and-14th-generation-k-sku-processor-instability-issue-update/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/intel-reportedly-blames-motherboard-makers-for-core-i9-cpu-crashes/

[sounds]

While Intel's statement is written to hide the facts, I think the facts are simple:

1. Buy overclockable motherboard
2. Buy i9-14900KS
3. Overclockable enthusiast motherboard's BIOS default PL1 is "beyond Intel recommended limits"
4. Intel blames motherboard, but CPU is already toast

False advertising maybe?

[porina]

Overclocking has always been at the user's risk. The problem we have is that mobo manufacturers haven't made it clear what settings would count as overclocking and/or setting it as default. Even on an AM5 build I recently got I might have the opposite problem. Asus description for a setting in bios was "overclock CPU and ram for more performance" so I disabled it. The CPU wouldn't turbo. Put that setting back to Auto, I get turbo.

[8tg]

Amazing they called my 11900K a high wattage house fire waste of sand. And heres the 14900k cooking itself.

[BiotechBen]

37 minutes ago, sounds said:

While Intel's statement is written to hide the facts, I think the facts are simple:

1. Buy overclockable motherboard
2. Buy i9-14900KS
3. Overclockable enthusiast motherboard's BIOS default PL1 is "beyond Intel recommended limits"
4. Intel blames motherboard, but CPU is already toast

False advertising maybe?

Overclocking has always been "do at your own risk" and the 14900KS is a 13900ks golden sample, which is a 12900ks refresh, which was a 12th gen golden sample. This isn't ivy bridge where the chip is intentionally nerfed: the chip started at the redline and revving it perpetually at the redline is going to break it. 

 

If Yamaha makes an engine at rates max RPM at 6000, and then it goes into a car and the redline is set at 9000rpm, and the bozo pulls up to a car meet and pins it at the red line for 20 minutes straight, is it yamaha's fault for it blowing up?

[sounds]

@BiotechBen while you're technically correct, which is the best kind of correct...

 

This problem can manifest without the buyer touching the BIOS settings at all. The defaults are set to an unlimited PL1... Oh, yes, it's actually limited at 4000 amps. Like I said, unlimited.

[Kilrah]

4 minutes ago, sounds said:

This problem can manifest without the buyer touching the BIOS settings at all. The defaults are set to an unlimited PL1... Oh, yes, it's actually limited at 4000 amps. Like I said, unlimited.

Which is why Intel is blaming the mobo manufacturers for using these unsafe defaults in their BIOSes.

[Mumintroll]

JayTwoCents has done a youtube vid about this.

Apparently many motherboard bios settings today have that "feature" set to on as default, that lets the cpu get more power than Intel's safe limit.

 

 

[starsmine]

39 minutes ago, porina said:

Overclocking has always been at the user's risk. The problem we have is that mobo manufacturers haven't made it clear what settings would count as overclocking and/or setting it as default. Even on an AM5 build I recently got I might have the opposite problem. Asus description for a setting in bios was "overclock CPU and ram for more performance" so I disabled it. The CPU wouldn't turbo. Put that setting back to Auto, I get turbo.

I don't think the mobo manufacturers even know some of the settings are overclocking because intel doesn't really specify on their end. 
intel has stated to reviews and manufacturers as that those settings ARE in spec 

 

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, sounds said:

Summary

Igor's lab obtained a preliminary statement from Intel:

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

What can users expect then? This seems like Intel trying to pass the buck. In Ars Technica's own words:

 

Sources

https://www.igorslab.de/en/intel-releases-the-13th-and-14th-generation-k-sku-processor-instability-issue-update/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/intel-reportedly-blames-motherboard-makers-for-core-i9-cpu-crashes/

Intel is kinda right imo, chips are run too fast for their own good, you can't blame them for that, and problem is the board manufacturers propose dangerous "default" settings

Intel specs/recommendations are pretty clear

 

[starsmine]

15 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Intel specs/recommendations are pretty clear

as clear as silent hill fog. 

[PDifolco]

1 minute ago, starsmine said:

as clear as silent hill fog. 

Nah, crystal clear

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236773/intel-core-i9-processor-14900k-36m-cache-up-to-6-00-ghz/specifications.html

 

[starsmine]

19 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Nah, crystal clear

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236773/intel-core-i9-processor-14900k-36m-cache-up-to-6-00-ghz/specifications.html

 

that's not the specifications we are talking about here in the slightest. What is Tau for example. What is the spec core voltages? what is the voltage curve?



https://www.anandtech.com/show/14582/talking-tdp-turbo-and-overclocking-an-interview-with-intel-fellow-guy-therien

 

Quote

Both PL2 and Tau are configurable by the OEM and ODM, and are ‘in spec’. So you have the ability, of course, if the power delivery supports a higher power limit, and also if the system has the thermal capability (because it makes no sense if you’re just going to thermally throttle), to adjust these values. So motherboard manufacturers and ODMs are investing in their power delivery and thermal solutions to allow them to maximize performance or get a certain about of turbo duration without throttling – to the maximum extent possible. As a result of this you can invest different amounts of money into the power delivery, the thermal solution, the thinness of the system and so on – it’s the ability to design something that is differentiated for the audience, both in terms of form factor and performance.

 

[Salted Spinach]

For those who say Intel is not at fault, can you explain why this is not also happening to Ryzen motherboards from the same board partners?

 

So they chose to allow an absurdly high power limit only for the Intel processors that are already drawing a lot more power than Ryzen CPUs?

 

One does not willingly shoot themself in the foot

[porina]

1 hour ago, starsmine said:

I don't think the mobo manufacturers even know some of the settings are overclocking because intel doesn't really specify on their end. 
intel has stated to reviews and manufacturers as that those settings ARE in spec 

The reference you provided only talks about power limits. The mobo makers are adjusting more than that. Look at the settings Falcon Northwest and later Intel recommended to change. I don't know what they are. Do some of those fall under overclocking? In short, don't focus on the power limit. It is bigger than that.

 

Also that article was written when Coffee Lake was current, just before Comet Lake's release. Do we know if Intel has changed their policy since then? The problem is, this stuff is mostly not public info. Hardware manufacturers do have that info, otherwise we wouldn't have working product.

 

15 minutes ago, Salted Spinach said:

For those who say Intel is not at fault, can you explain why this is not also happening with their Ryzen motherboards?

AMD did not give that freedom and enforced a power (and other) limits. Not 100% sure from the start of Ryzen but certainly from Zen 2. We could looked at the EXPO mess early on as another similar example.

[PDifolco]

34 minutes ago, Salted Spinach said:

For those who say Intel is not at fault, can you explain why this is not also happening to Ryzen motherboards from the same board partners?

 

So they chose to allow an absurdly high power limit only for the Intel processors that are already drawing a lot more power than Ryzen CPUs?

 

One does not willingly shoot themself in the foot

A similar thing happened on Zen5 x3D chips, some boards BIOS put way too much DRAM voltage in the XMP settings, killing the chip and potentially burning everything, GN did study that in detail

To me it's exactly the same issue, board manufacturers not respecting safe voltage/power in *default* settings

Intel let power limits loose to allow OC, you can expect people that do their own tweaks to be responsible of it, but when the BIOS default is too aggressive fault is on the board manufacturer

 

[Blademaster91]

42 minutes ago, Salted Spinach said:

For those who say Intel is not at fault, can you explain why this is not also happening to Ryzen motherboards from the same board partners?

 

So they chose to allow an absurdly high power limit only for the Intel processors that are already drawing a lot more power than Ryzen CPUs?

 

One does not willingly shoot themself in the foot

Certain models of AMD Ryzen AM5 motherboards were killing CPU's because voltage was set too high, AMD and the board manufacturers were at fault for that one.

Intel is simply passing the blame here, they approved of the specs mobo makers are using and have been allowing mobo makers to set higher limits than default without the user ever changing UEFI settings.

IMO, Ryzen CPU's having power limits is the better thing to do than allow a 4000W power limit since motherboard makers can't do sketchy things just so they can brag about overclocking or pointless benchmark numbers.

[starsmine]

4 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

To me it's exactly the same issue, board manufacturers not respecting safe voltage/power in *default* settings

Intel let power limits loose to allow OC, you can expect people that do their own tweaks to be responsible of it, but when the BIOS default is too aggressive fault is on the board manufacturer

 

What is to aggressive? What is safe?
Thats the problem here. Intel spec is loose and has been for a while. Its just not reared its head of consequences until we got parts that could handle such wattages without thermal throttling. 

These boards ARE in spec. As per Intel. But now that we have solved cooling 300W CPUs at a consumer level, they are boosting to unstability on the poorer binned chips.

[PDifolco]

1 minute ago, starsmine said:

What is to aggressive? What is safe?
Thats the problem here. Intel spec is loose and has been for a while. Its just not reared its head of consequences until we got parts that could handle such wattages without thermal throttling. 

These boards ARE in spec. As per Intel. But now that we have solved cooling 300W CPUs at a consumer level, they are boosting to unstability on the poorer binned chips.

Intel and AMD give clear recommendations about safe voltage and power, proof is there's been very few problems with that in 20 years...

If they hardlimit things in the chip people will rant they cannot OC anymore, so they don't

Now mobo manufacturers are supposed to be responsible and competent and put safe settings, they know where the limits are

Who's thinking you can safely send 999W into a chip, even with a monster power delivery ??

 

[starsmine]

2 hours ago, PDifolco said:

Intel and AMD give clear recommendations about safe voltage and power, proof is there's been very few problems with that in 20 years...

If they hardlimit things in the chip people will rant they cannot OC anymore, so they don't

Now mobo manufacturers are supposed to be responsible and competent and put safe settings, they know where the limits are

Who's thinking you can safely send 999W into a chip, even with a monster power delivery ??

 

No one is saying you can send 999W, that number isnt real, its just turning that limit off which, once again, is in spec. AS PER INTEL. Its using other limits from intel to control the chip at that point and throttling using other parameters. 

 

Quote

Guy Therien: Even with those values, you're not running out of spec, I want to make very clear – you’re running in spec, but you are getting higher turbo duration.

And in case you dont know who guy is
he is an intel fellow Hardware Engineer

This is Intel's Hardware engineers rank structure. 
he isnt some guy, he was THE guy. 

intel has not gotten stricter since 2019 with specs, they have only gotten looser. 

Im not saying Guy is wrong either here, this system worked back then. But the chips thermal throttled at way less wattages due to heat transfer to the IHS back then. 

[SorryBella]

7 hours ago, starsmine said:

No one is saying you can send 999W

^^^

This is why i think the whole "amd did it too" is apples oranges. AMD wont accept you inputting 4096W without instability, yet intel microcode somehow would do it until they perish in heat. Noone wins with what Intel provided as "voltage specs".

[starsmine]

11 minutes ago, SorryBella said:

^^^

This is why i think the whole "amd did it too" is apples oranges. AMD wont accept you inputting 4096W without instability, yet intel microcode somehow would do it until they perish in heat. Noone wins with what Intel provided as "voltage specs".

AMD does though, 

I do have power per thread and total DC current to be 1000W and 1000A respectively. Its just gets throttled elsewhere. Like with voltages. again settings intel to 999W or 4096W is just saying don't use this to throttle the chip, its not saying the chip can even pull that much, to pull that much wattage requires obscene voltages.


BUT it also should be said, this is not and has never been advertised as in spec, unlike intel. 

[Beerzerker]

One thing that's being missed is when you say:

13 hours ago, sounds said:

Intel releases these K-series chips to satisfy overclockers and tinkerers, but it's clear that there just isn't a lot of performance headroom left in these chips since Intel is already pushing their clock speeds and voltages to squeeze out generational performance improvements.

That depends on the context of what's meant by "Overclockers".

For most, you won't see big performance gains because they aren't setup to get them like the XOC guys are.
Mainly air and watercooling for the average user so you won't see alot gained as mentioned.

The ones that can get alot more performance are XOC guys chasing world records and those are the ones you'll see getting the kind of performance gains you could only wish for BUT as we all know that kind of thing isn't practical at all for the average user.

Performance sells and Intel knows it, that's why you have guys doing that and Intel providing the hardware (Sponsorship to certain benchers) to make it happen. They know big numbers from benching will sway many to go with what they are offering and it's a little something called marketing - AMD does the same thing themselves so it's not excusive to Intel alone.

That's one big reason why Intel is a sponsor of HWbot - Says so on their home page at the top in fact, plus Intel pushed the bot to have XTU benchmark as part of the benchies ran there.

[sounds]

TechLinked covered it today: 

 

[dogwitch]

1 hour ago, Beerzerker said:

One thing that's being missed is when you say:

That depends on the context of what's meant by "Overclockers".

For most, you won't see big performance gains because they aren't setup to get them like the XOC guys are.
Mainly air and watercooling for the average user so you won't see alot gained as mentioned.

The ones that can get alot more performance are XOC guys chasing world records and those are the ones you'll see getting the kind of performance gains you could only wish for BUT as we all know that kind of thing isn't practical at all for the average user.

Performance sells and Intel knows it, that's why you have guys doing that and Intel providing the hardware (Sponsorship to certain benchers) to make it happen. They know big numbers from benching will sway many to go with what they are offering and it's a little something called marketing - AMD does the same thing themselves so it's not excusive to Intel alone.

That's one big reason why Intel is a sponsor of HWbot - Says so on their home page at the top in fact, plus Intel pushed the bot to have XTU benchmark as part of the benchies ran there.

their a.i oc by  manf. aka boost clock and manual oc.