Gaming Crashes on Raptor Lake? Leaked Intel Docs Explain Why

Intel has addressed the gaming stability issues of the 13th and 14th generation Core processors by introducing the “Intel Default Settings” profile. Major motherboard manufacturers have now released new BIOS updates that include this profile, which reduces core voltage and limits the boost potential of these processors. However, this approach merely mitigates the likelihood of issues occurring rather than resolving the underlying problem, resulting in a potential performance decrease. Intel has now identified the fundamental cause of the stability issues in Raptor Lake processors.

Igor’s LAB discovered from leaked internal Intel documents that the root cause of the gaming stability issues in the 13th and 14th generation Core processors is an incorrect value in the microcode algorithm related to the eTVB feature. Increasing the frequency and corresponding voltage under high temperatures may compromise the processor’s reliability. The affected platforms include Raptor Lake-S and Raptor Lake Refresh-S.

Intel eTVB is a technology developed specifically for Raptor Lake-S processors. This technology optimizes CPU performance by automatically overclocking the processor cores beyond their maximum boost frequency, depending on the available thermal headroom and power. This means that if the processor’s temperature is sufficiently low and there is adequate power, eTVB can increase the clock frequency, thus providing better performance for short-term, compute-intensive tasks. This feature is particularly beneficial for games and applications requiring high burst speeds.

In practice, the TVB technology applies only to Core i9 processors, which have exhibited the most instability issues. A solution to this problem has also been proposed:

Failure Analysis (FA) of 13th and 14th Generation K SKU processors indicates a shift in minimum operating voltage on affected processors resulting from cumulative exposure to elevated core voltages. Intel® analysis has determined a confirmed contributing factor for this issue is elevated voltage input to the processor due to previous BIOS settings which allow the processor to operate at turbo frequencies and voltages even while the processor is at a high temperature. Previous generations of Intel® K SKU processors were less sensitive to these type of settings due to lower default operating voltage and frequency.

 

Intel® requests all customers to update BIOS to microcode 0x125 or later by 7/19/2024.
This microcode includes an eTVB fix for an issue which may allow the processor to enter a higher performance state even when the processor temperature has exceeded eTVB thresholds .