Another motherboard maker has just issued a round of BIOS updates to prevent game crashes on Intel CPUs, while Intel itself says it’s still researching the problem. The latest motherboard manufacturer to address the problem is ASRock, which now joins Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte, meaning all the big four desktop PC motherboard makers are now scrambling to make their systems stable when using Intel’s Core i9 CPUs.
The problem appears to mainly affect the best gaming CPU in the current Intel lineup, the Core i9 14900K, as well as the last-gen 13900K (and the KF variants of both chips). In particular, when running games based on the Unreal Engine, gamers have been reporting Intel CPU game crashes when compiling shaders, and being met with error messages saying they’ve run out of video RAM.
If you have an ASRock motherboard based on the Z790 or Z760 chipset, and you’re struggling with stability problems on an Intel Core i9 CPU, check ASRock’s website to find your motherboard’s support page, and then head to the Support Tab and click the BIOS button. You then need to download the latest BIOS version that lists “Intel Baseline Profile” and update your motherboard. If you’ve not done this before, check out our guide on how to flash your BIOS to see how it’s done.
As with Asus and Gigabyte’s new BIOS versions, these new firmware updates are designed to prevent your CPU from running beyond Intel’s power spec, if you enable the Intel baseline profile. In an official statement, Intel said it had observed several BIOS settings that would cause a CPU to run outside of the Intel recommended specs, including disabling C-States, increasing PL1 and PL2 beyond Intel’s recommended limits, and disabling Thermal Velocity Boost.
We’re expecting an update from Intel about the situation later in May 2024, but at the moment the company says it’s still reviewing the reported issues in order to “determine the root cause.” What’s more, running your CPU at Intel’s recommended specifications will cause a drop in performance, as your processor won’t have the headroom to boost its clock speed as regularly as before.
In the meantime, if you’re planning to build a gaming PC, we recommend checking out our AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D review, as this CPU is not only quicker than the Core i9 14900K in a lot of game tests, but it’s also significantly cheaper.