Is microcode + Intel Default Settings enough?

[dvoelke15ca02e5]

The gaming prebuilt I bought several months ago has an i-7 14700K vulnerable to the degrading issue. Fortunately, I’ve used it very little – I’m taking a long time to prep it and migrate from my old PC. I’ve observed no problems with it, and it’s probably safe to assume it hasn’t started degrading.

I’ve read a lot about the need to undervolt to keep temps down (recommended even before the defective chip story broke). But for those of us who've never tweaked BIOSes, it’s too confusing – ask 10 people which settings to change, you’ll get 10 answers.

I’ve updated my MSI BIOS to the 0x12B microcode. As I see it, it’s in Intel’s interest to keep these CPUs from overheating, degrading, and having to replace them in warranty. For this reason, I’m thinking I will probably be OK if I stick with the Intel Default Settings (not MSI’s). I could maybe monitor temps with HWINFO during typical sessions for reassurance. If my CPU does develop problems, they’ll probably show up within the 5-yr. extended warranty, and I can RMA it if that happens. Is this sound reasoning, or am I asking for trouble?

 

[garillon151802d3]

As far as we know based on what Intel has said, your CPU should be safe from this specific degradation issue if you've updated to the 0x12B microcode. You're not required to further adjust anything. You could likely improve your temps and efficiency with some moderate tweaking, but if you're content with how the system is functioning and you don't notice any outstanding issues you can just leave it on the defaults.

 

[citay]

Yes, more or less what has been answered. As you can read in this Intel post, the main thing to prevent CPU degradation is that the BIOS has been updated to use the latest 0x12B microcode revision from Intel (this has only started to happen within the last month). So, provided that your pre-built has a very recent BIOS update which incorporates that 0x12B microcode, then the root cause of degradation, the voltage spikes, should not be happening anymore.

Then, the overarching theme of the recent CPUs (which really started from 9th gen with the 9900K, but has only gotten worse with each generation) is that the higher-end CPUs get pushed very far from factory, beyond their comfort zone, leading to excessive voltages -> power draw -> heat -> temperatures in order to reach their increasingly high boost clocks. Because apparently this was the only way Intel could keep AMD in check in the CPU launch reviews. With 14th gen, even your i7 is such a kind of monster, it's worse than a 13900K. And today's mid-range CPUs have a power draw like yesterday's high-end ones.

So people run into thermal throttling (overheating that is barely prevented by slowing down the CPU) and generally high power draw for any kind of load, which results in low efficiency. To deal with that, i wrote a guide which deals with it in two steps: Guide: How to set good power limits in the BIOS and reduce the CPU power draw.

Step 1) is about setting good power limits for your cooling. The power limits are two settings in the BIOS, the Long and the Short limit, but for simplicity's sake you can set both to the same value. If you have a pre-built PC and they know their stuff (sadly, that is often not quite the case), then these limits might be set to something custom already, because they should know what their cooling can handle. But it's good to check this yourself, because pre-built PCs can contain a lot of configuration mistakes, sometimes even in hardware.

Step 2) is about lowering the CPU voltage to what your specific CPU sample requires for full stability. This always has to be done yourself, because each CPU is individual. This is just one setting in the BIOS, "CPU Lite Load". You might have to disable an additional setting called "IA CEP Support".

For step 2), you sometimes get other recommendations because there's more than one way to skin a cat. Meaning, the CPU voltage can be lowered by using different methods. However, i explicitly recommend the easiest method (which is nonetheless very effective), it bundles everything in one simple setting.

So if you want: Lower voltages -> less power draw -> less heat -> lower temperatures, while achieving higher efficiency and often even higher performance, that guide will tell you how to do that. If you just don't want the voltage spikes to happen anymore, the BIOS with the 0x12B microcode will already do that.

BUT: It will also crank up the baseline voltages by a lot. See Explained: How the new BIOS versions are causing higher temperatures. Because what they are doing, they are using a higher default mode for that very CPU Lite Load setting, and presumably this is done to stabilize CPUs which have already become unstable from deterioration. The old approach that's also used for overclocking: More voltage can make something unstable more stable. However, if your CPU didn't develop any instability, this will make everything much worse instead, you can basically reverse the words "lower/less" and "higher" for what i mentioned one paragraph above.

So, despite the latest BIOS versions taking care of the damaging voltage spikes, they make the CPU run more inefficiently, for most users completely unnecessarily. So it's up to the user to correct that, and often make it run better than ever before, after they are done with the two steps.

 

[ali.605128602a8]

DO NOT BELIEVE ANY OF INTEL'S CLAIMS

 

[FlyingScot]

If my CPU does develop problems, they’ll probably show up within the 5-yr. extended warranty, and I can RMA it if that happens. Is this sound reasoning, or am I asking for trouble?

If you purchased a prebuilt, I believe you will have to work with the company that built your PC. That could be very problematic or very smooth depending on their desire to take back your entire system. However, I don‘t know/remember if Intel made any recent concessions on that point. You should reach out to your system integrator and to Intel for clarification.

After speaking to the above companies, if you believe you will face potential issues in the future with a warranty claim then that might make learning to undervolt the CPU via CiTay’s guide (successfully followed by many people with little prior knowledge like yourself) more worthwhile. If you can reduce the voltage your CPU uses, it should always extend the life of the CPU. You will also want to make sure that your system is properly configured to use all the power saving features to run a healthy idle voltage.

Tip #1: Check your Windows Power Plan and confirm that it is set to Balanced. The rest of the idle related settings are in the BIOS, but the defaults are usually adequate. So that just leaves you to use HWInfo64 to monitor your system‘s voltage when the system has been idle for 20mins+. You will learn to do this as a natural outcome of following CiTay’s guide to reduce peak voltages. It’s really not difficult work, it’s just a little trial and error as you repeat the process until you find the limits of your particular CPU. Every CPU is unique in regards to its atomic-level electrical properties.