Asus releases firmware update to address game crashes on Intel CPUs

[Alfonso Maruccia]

A hot potato: Owners of recent Intel CPUs designed for gaming have been experiencing a lot of crashes during the shader compilation process, and motherboard manufacturers are now starting to provide a proper fix to this unusually widespread issue. Asus has already released new firmware, and other companies could soon do the same.

Owners of recent Intel CPUs and Asus motherboards based on the Z790, B760, and H770 chipsets are strongly advised to install the latest firmware update released by the Taiwanese manufacturer. The company introduced the new update as a BIOS ready for "next gen Intel processors," while the firmware is essentially designed to make those processors actually work as they should have done from the start.

The new firmware introduces an additional BIOS option known as "Intel Baseline Profile," which provides users with the ability to revert to Intel factory settings for basic processor functionality. Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs should start working within lower power limits, thus improving stability in certain gaming scenarios.

Crashes and other instability issues were mostly experienced by owners of Core i9-13900K, Core i9-14900K, Core i7-13700K, and Core i7-14700K CPUs. Game developers have had to recommend that users to downclock their systems to avoid crashes, with the root cause identified as excessive power delivery by 700-Series motherboards to Intel's latest gaming processors.

The newly introduced Intel Baseline Profile (IBP) included in the latest Asus firmware confirms that motherboard manufacturers were inexplicably going against Chipzilla's suggested working parameters. The majority of instability issues were experienced with games based on the Unreal Engine 5, with most of the crashes happening during the shader compilation process while loading a game.

The new firmware update should fix the stability issue for Asus customers, but it doesn't explain why the company – and likely other hardware manufacturers – decided to go so aggressively beyond Intel's suggested settings to begin with. Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs would likely provide more than adequate performance levels even when the Intel Baseline Profile is enabled.

If the new IBP option will solve the stability issue for good on Asus platforms, other motherboard vendors will likely follow with their own specific firmware updates. Downclocking a high-end CPU isn't really a solution, as it could have a significantly detrimental impact on the system's overall performance both for gaming and general-purpose applications.

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Asus releases firmware update to address game crashes on Intel CPUs

 

[J95qRP7]

This would mean that the performance profile on these boards will be wildly different from launch. If Motherboard vendors enable this by default in a future bios update, I hope sites that do reviews will go back and adjust their verdicts and advice with the new performance reality of these products. I don't know if they will enable this feature as the default, but it is certainly not out of the question.

 

[Kam7r]

13/14 intels should be re-tested with this "fix", I'm sure the results will be ... disapointing, btw all of them but mostly Asus do this kind of cr@p every fcking time, just to look good on the reviews and they don't care if what they do don't hold at people's Place of destroy quickly the hardware...

 

[Adhmuz]

This might work for some CPUs, but ultimately there are many that just should never have been binned as i9 parts to begin with, even when running at Intel recommended specs some are failing or crashing regardless. Intel has pushed their CPUs too close to the sun and now the wings are falling off, motherboard manufacturers aren't helping by then giving these already razor's edge stability CPUs more power then they can handle, it's no wonder the silicon is failing in my opinion.

 

[MSIGamer]

Spoiler: because it has almost a 10% performance hit compared to the previous stock settings. Intel wouldn't stand a chance on the benchmark charts.