If you own a 13th or 14th-gen Intel CPU, then you’ll be glad to hear that the new microcode stability fix for your CPU is now starting to roll out, thanks to Asus and MSI. Following months of reports about Intel CPU instability, including game crashes in titles based on Unreal Engine 5, the new Intel CPU fix is designed to address an error in the microcode of its CPUs, which the company claims is causing its chips to make “incorrect voltage requests.”
The update is advised for any CPU with a TDP of over 65W, which is the vast majority of processors in the Intel 13th-gen and 14th-gen lineups, including its best gaming CPU, the Core i9 14900K. To apply the new update, you’ll need to update the firmware on your motherboard, otherwise known as flashing the BIOS, and both Asus and MSI have announced that they’re starting to roll out the update on their motherboards.
Many owners of Intel CPUs have reported stability problems in games, particularly in titles based on the latest Unreal Engine. One common error message says that your system doesn’t have enough video memory, even if you have one of the best graphics cards with loads of VRAM available. We’ve recently seen this in the First Descendant out of video memory error, and it’s appeared in a number of other games too, with Nvidia sending customers to Intel support to resolve the issue.
MSI now says all of its motherboards based on Intel 700 and 600-series chipsets will receive a BIOS update by the end of August 2024, but it’s already kicked off the process by providing new BIOS updates for several of its best gaming motherboards on its website, including the following boards:
- MSI MEG Z790 Godlike Max
- MSI MEG Z790 Ace Max
- MSI MPG Z790 Carbon Max WiFi II
- MSI MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi
- MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk Max WiFi
- MSI Z790MPower
Meanwhile, Asus has also made beta BIOS updates available for several of its motherboards based on the Z790 chipset, which it says update the microcode to version 129 to fix Intel instability. The list includes the following motherboards:
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero BTF
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero EVA-02 Edition
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Apec
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Apex Encore
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Formula
- Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi D4
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi II
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi S
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi II
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WiFi
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WiFi II
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-H Gaming WiFi
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-I Gaming WiFi
- Asus ProArt Z790-Creator WiFi
- Asus Z790-AYW OC WiFi
As far as we can see, none of the motherboards’ official online support pages have the new updates available to download yet, but Asus’ ROG team has made them available to download via Google Drive here. We haven’t received word from Gigabyte and ASRock on this matter yet, but hopefully both these firms will have new BIOS updates available soon too.
If you’ve never updated your motherboard firmware before, check out our guide on how to flash your BIOS first, where we take you through the whole process step by step.