Intel denies having found the cause of problems in Core i9 CPUs

Intel has officially denied having found a solution to the problems that have been affecting 13th and 14th generation Raptor Lake-based Core i9 processors. The company decided to declare itself after rumors circulated that the bug would soon be resolved by a patch.

The unconfirmed information began to circulate, initially, in a publication on the German website Igor’s Lab, well known in the hardware world. The post was spread across other media, causing Intel to issue an official statement to the folks at Tom’s Hardware:

“Contrary to recent rumors in the media, Intel has not found the root of the problem and continues, with its partners, to investigate user reports regarding instability issues on unlocked 13th and 14th generation Intel Core desktop processors (K/ KF/KS).”

The text published on the Igor’s Lab website claimed to have obtained information through the alleged leak of an internal Intel document. The communication mentions a problem in the algorithm associated with the eTVB feature, and the site concluded that this could be the root of the Core i9 problems.

The creator of Raptor Lake, however, explained that there was in fact an error in the eTVB code, discovered during her investigations. It was corrected, but it was not the main cause that they were looking for to correct the situation once and for all.

Core i9 CPU problems continue

Intel’s 13th and 14th generation high-end processors are based on Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh. Users of these CPUs began to report problems in games at the beginning of the year, which resulted in drops in performance and even crashes during gameplay.

While not finding the root of the problem, the manufacturer has established a new BIOS profile called Baseline, which considerably lowers the Core i9’s clock rate. Therefore, this is not yet considered an ideal solution to the bug that plagues these CPUs.

The code error in eTVB may not have caused Intel’s biggest current headache, but its correction will help the situation. The feature automatically increases the CPU clock beyond the boost clock limit, but only when certain safe conditions to do so are detected. Intel itself stated that the bug could be “potentially contributing to the instability” of the Core i9.