Gigabyte and MSI also provide BIOS settings to address Intel crashing CPUs

[Jimmy2x]

In context: Reviewers, CPU owners, and engineers have for the last several months endured stability issues related to several Intel 13th- and 14th-gen processors. Further investigation attributed the issues to the BIOS settings used by many Intel motherboard partners, which use "optimized" settings ignoring Intel's default maximum power limits. This week, Gigabyte and MSI joined Asus in providing additional BIOS versions and configurations aimed at alleviating these issues and adhering to Intel's power specifications.

Gigabyte's latest beta BIOS, announced on Friday, provides a new Intel Baseline feature on its Z790 and B760 series motherboards. According to the announcement, the new beta BIOS is designed to provide enhanced stability by eliminating the high power "optimized" settings thought to induce the instability associated with Intel's 13th- and 14th-generation i7 and i9 CPUs.

The new Gigabyte BIOS, which is available via the applicable motherboard product pages, provides access to the new Intel BaseLine power limit setting under the BIOS' Tweaker tab. According to the update's description, the new BIOS optimizes current excursion protection (CEP) and power settings, provides processor support and optimization for the i9-14900KS, updates the Intel APO (DTT) framework version to 9.0.11405.42569, and adds the Intel BaseLine turbo power limits for the 13th- and 14th-gen K-series CPUs.

On Thursday, MSI provided its own workaround to alleviate the ongoing stability issues. Rather than releasing an updated BIOS, MSI instead provided a how-to guide describing how users can leverage existing BIOS features to restore Intel's recommended power and current limits.

MSI users running Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K processors can easily restore Intel-recommended default power limits through the BIOS' OC panel and CPU Cooler Tuning setting. Rather than defaulting to optimized BIOS settings allowing maximum power draw, MSI's Boxed Cooler option limits the CPU to a much more modest 253W. Users can also select the Intel Default option in the MSI BIOS' CPU Lite Load Control. According to MSI, while these lower default settings may increase stability, they could also result in an increase in the processor's voltage.

The updates from Gigabyte and MSI are similar to the firmware updates released by Asus earlier this week. Intel is continuing to work closely with its board partners to further identify the cause of the issue and potential solutions. While reducing power and overall performance may not be ideal, it certainly beats sitting in front of your high-end PC and wondering if it's going to hold out or crash mid-game.

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Gigabyte and MSI also provide BIOS settings to address Intel crashing CPUs

 

[LetTheWookieWin]

As suspected, the crashes are related to board manufacturers trying to game benchmarks by blowing past the power limits.

My MSI Z790 Tomahawk has a default power limit of 4095W (I.e. a 12-bit control set to the max). If you own one of these CPUs and have issues, look up the rated PL1 and PL2 settings and adjust those limits back to Intel specs, then see if that fixes your problem.

 

[Nelson28]

Finally some relief for Intel CPU owners! Those crashes seem to be caused by cranked BIOS settings. Glad Gigabyte and MSI are offering updates to fix things, even if it means a bit less power. Hopefully no more mid-game crashes!

 

[Superconductor]

Patches don't justify Intel effing up real bad on this one..

 

[FaTaL]

Thers no need to fcking overclock these CPUs. they are extremely fast on intels default voltage. these manufacturers are morons trying to flex.... fine, but dont ship us ur sht ignoring intels power recommendations.

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[MSIGamer]

Optimized my ***. Optimized for rapid cpu degradation and maximum rma requests.

 

[poohbear]

Thers no need to fcking overclock these CPUs. they are extremely fast on intels default voltage. these manufacturers are morons trying to flex.... fine, but dont ship us ur sht ignoring intels power recommendations.

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All it took was 1 mobo manufacturer to do it so their mobos bench higher in benchmarks. What were the other manufacturers gonna do? Just let them beat them in all those benchmark reviews? It's the nature of competition, it pushes people to perform better, but it always comes at the expense of something.

 

[MSIGamer]

Thers no need to fcking overclock these CPUs. they are extremely fast on intels default voltage. these manufacturers are morons trying to flex.... fine, but dont ship us ur sht ignoring intels power recommendations.

...|...

The need was there, because without this overclock they are 8 to 15% (!) slower and Intel is never the best instead of sometimes.
It would **** up their entire fastest processor ever marketing scheme.

 

[DukeJukem]

These BIOS updates to "address" these issues are a joke. It's basically a "BIOS for dummies." The options to enforce stock intel everything have always been there, at least on ASUS and MSI boards. ASUS MultiCore Enhancement for Z Series boards/Asus Performance Enhancement for lower tier boards has always been there, turn it off. Wowza you're on Intel stock everything. Amazing. MSI boards, at least when I had my hands on the last one roughly a year ago, always prompted you to choose your "cooler type" when resetting BIOS defaults or clearing CMOS and it labels the wattages, choose the air cooler and you're on Intel stock settings.

As for Gigabyte and ASRock, no clue. Gave up on Gigabyte due to many poor experiences and have never owned an ASRock board but have seen many ASrock Bios videos. The options are there.

So unless disabling AMCE/APE/Choosing MSIs air cooler option was an actual lie, then these BIOS updates are worthless. Disabling those settings or choosing the air cooler option is msi always resulted in stock power limits being enforced though, so they're not a lie and the results were reflected in windows.

So basically these BIOS updates are to look good, help the simple people who don't know what they're doing and are technically a lie. These updates aren't doing a single thing compared to what I described above. Nothing.

Or there are secret/hidden settings these new profiles do that weren't reflected by doing what I mentioned above, which would be a scam and a lie to the customer honestly. lawsuit?

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Thers no need to fcking overclock these CPUs. they are extremely fast on intels default voltage. these manufacturers are morons trying to flex.... fine, but dont ship us ur sht ignoring intels power recommendations.

...|...

Nah, They learned from intel's demonstration, it was they who overclocked old products to launch refresh upon refresh, pushing all TDP limits beyond the efficiency curve.

 

[Kam7r]

Im sure intel knew all of this but let the motherboard manufacturers takes the blame, like this intel Cpu would not be ridiculized on the reviews by AMD and if ppl complain in the future ( like now ) the blame is not on them... but on MSI, asus, gigabyte etc...

I would like to see new reviews of intel cpu's with this "patch" ...

 

[DukeJukem]

I swear none of u read what I said. its not a real bios update. bunch of noobs.