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For the past few weeks, there have been reports of instability in certain games while running a late-model “unlocked” Intel CPU. Intel first announced it was looking into the issue but didn’t have a solution yet. That was followed by motherboard manufacturers adding an “Intel Baseline Profile” to a BIOS update that lowered clocks and voltages and reportedly solved the issue, hinting at the real culprit. Now Igor’s Lab has unearthed a letter from Intel to OEMs discussing the problem, which blames the BIOS makers for providing CPU settings that were a tad too ambitious.
The letter is pretty self-explanatory: Companies like Asus, Gigabyte, and so forth have been offering settings via the BIOS that exceed Intel’s specifications. This situation can lead to “sustained high voltage,” leading to higher frequencies and temperatures. Intel says the actual “root cause” is still undetermined. Still, its analysis of affected processors shows that processors operating beyond minimum voltage levels are operating outside of Intel’s specs.
Motherboard makers have begun adding a baseline profile to Intel chipset BIOSes that solves the issues by lowering clocks and voltages to Intel’s default spec.
Credit: Quasarzone forum
The company’s analysis states that unlocked processors are affected, which we already knew, and that they’re being run on BIOSes with thermal and power delivery safeguards removed. At this point, you can see the writing on the wall, as companies essentially allowed for extreme overclocking to say their motherboards offered the highest level of performance for Intel CPUs. Igor notes that Intel was on board with this situation since it made its chips look good. However, things have gone too far, and Intel is asking motherboard manufacturers to dial it back a bit.
The company writes, “Intel requests system and motherboard manufacturers to provide end users with a default BIOS profile that matches Intel recommended settings.” Intel also advises BIOS makers to add warnings that would appear when the user changes the settings for the CPU’s voltage and thermal limits, urging them to proceed with caution.
Oddly, Intel says it’s still investigating this phenomenon to find the root cause of the issue. That said, it sounds close to finalizing its investigation as it says it’ll be announcing the final verdict in May, so it has some leeway in terms of when it will drop the hammer on these renegade BIOS makers.