Intel Publishes First Microcode Replace for Raptor Lake Stability Subject, BIOSes Going Out Now

Following Intel’s run of economic woes and Raptor Lake chip stability points, the corporate might use some excellent news on a Friday. And this week they’re delivering simply that, with the primary model of the eagerly awaited microcode repair for desktop Raptor Lake processors – in addition to the primary detailed rationalization of the underlying difficulty.

The brand new microcode launch, model 0x129, is Intel’s first stab at addressing the elevated voltage difficulty that has seemingly been the reason for Raptor Lake processor degradation over the previous 12 months and a half. Intel has been investigating the problem all 12 months, and after a sluggish begin, in current weeks has begun making extra important progress, figuring out what they’re calling an “elevated working voltage” difficulty in high-TDP desktop Raptor Lake (13^th & 14^th Era Core) chips. Again in late July the corporate was targeting a mid-August release date for a microcode patch to repair (or quite, stop) the degradation difficulty, and simply forward of that deadline, Intel has begun transport the microcode to their motherboard companions.

Even with this new microcode, nevertheless, Intel shouldn’t be performed with the soundness difficulty. Intel remains to be investigating whether or not it’s potential to enhance the soundness of already-degraded processors, and the general tone of Intel’s announcement could be very a lot that of a beta software program repair – Intel received’t be submitting this particular microcode revision for distribution by way of working system updates, for instance. So even when this microcode is profitable in stopping ongoing degradation, evidently Intel hasn’t closed the ebook on the problem completely, and that the corporate is presumably working in direction of a repair appropriate for wider launch.

Capping At 1.55v: Elevated Voltages Beget Elevated Voltages

So simply what does the 0x129 microcode replace do? In brief, it caps the voltage of affected Raptor Lake desktop chips at a still-toasty (however in spec) 1.55v. As famous in Intel’s earlier bulletins, extreme voltages appear to be at the reason for the problem, so capping voltages at what Intel has decided is the correct restrict ought to stop future chip harm.

The company’s letter to the community additionally outlines, for the primary time, simply what’s going on underneath the hood with degraded chips. These chips which have already succumbed to the problem from repeated voltage spikes have deteriorated in such a means that the minimal voltage wanted to function the chip – Vmin – has elevated past Intel’s unique specs. Because of this, these chips are not getting sufficient voltage to function.

Seasoned overclockers will little question discover that this can be a acquainted story, as this is without doubt one of the ways in which overclocked processors degrade over time. In these instances – because it seems to be with the Raptor Lake difficulty – extra voltage is required to maintain a chip secure, notably in workloads the place the voltage to the chip is already sagging.

And whereas all indicators level to this degradation being irreversible (and numerous RMAs in Intel’s future), there’s a ray of hope. If Intel’s evaluation is appropriate that degraded Raptor Lake chips can nonetheless function correctly with the next Vmin voltage, then there’s the potential for saving at the very least a few of these chips, and bringing them again to stability.

This “Vmin shift,” as Intel is looking it, is the corporate’s subsequent investigative goal. In line with the corporate’s letter, they’re aiming to supply updates by the “finish of August.”

Within the meantime, Intel’s keen motherboard companions have already begun releasing BIOSes with the brand new microcode, with ASUS and MSI even leaping the gun and sending out BIOSes earlier than Intel had an opportunity to correctly announce the microcode. Each distributors are releasing these as beta BIOSes, reflecting the final early nature of the microcode repair itself. And whereas we anticipate most customers will wish to get this microcode in place ASAP to mitigate additional harm on affected chips, it will be prudent to deal with these beta BIOSes as simply that.

Alongside these strains, as famous earlier, Intel is simply distributing the 0x129 microcode by way of BIOS updates presently. This microcode won’t be coming to different programs by way of working system updates. At this level we nonetheless anticipate distribution by way of OS updates to be the top recreation for this repair, however for now, Intel isn’t offering a timeline or different steerage for when that may occur. So for PC fanatics, at the very least, a BIOS replace is the one approach to get it for now.

Efficiency Influence: Typically Nil – However Not All the time

Lastly, Intel’s message additionally gives a little bit of steerage on the efficiency affect of the brand new microcode, primarily based on their inner testing. Beforehand the corporate has indicated that they anticipated no important efficiency affect, and primarily based on their expanded testing, by and huge this stays the case. Nonetheless, there are going to be some workloads that endure from efficiency regressions because of this.

To date, Intel has discovered a few workloads the place they’re seeing regressions. This contains PugetBench GPU Results Rating and, on the gaming aspect of issues, Hitman 3: Dartmoor. In any other case, nearly every little thing else Intel has examined, together with frequent benchmarks like Cinebench, and main video games, aren’t exhibiting efficiency regressions. So the general final result of the repair shouldn’t be fairly a spotless restoration, nevertheless it’s additionally not resulting in widespread efficiency losses, both.

As for AnandTech, we’ll be digging into this on our personal benchmark suite as time permits. We’ve one more CPU launch coming up next week, so there’s no scarcity of labor to be performed within the subsequent few days. (Sorry, Gavin!)

Intel’s Full Assertion