Intel Core i9-14900K Microcode 0x129 BIOS Fix: Before vs After Performance Benchmarks

Brent_Justice

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Introduction The Intel Microcode 0x129 BIOS fix has now been released to motherboard manufacturers, and motherboard manufacturers have now released official non-Beta BIOS for many motherboards. We are going to apply the new Microcode Fix on our ASUS TUF GAMING Z790-PRO WIFI motherboard, with our Intel Core i9-14900K installed, and see how performance is affected. […]

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Great writeup as usual. This is "a time will tell" scenario if this was a placebo or if it indeed worked.

I can't help but wonder if this is akin to putting lipstick on a pig and declaring it is fixed. Slight changes all of a sudden will prevent degradation (if a chip has not been degraded yet)? I don't know. I get the impression that Intel has no idea what is causing this in their 13/14 series, so they put out this microcode to appease the angry mobs with pitchforks banging on their door. Right now, I do not trust anything they say or do.
 
The uCode update did not change the power draw, nor are the boost clocks much lower. The max voltage was lower however (1.495 V in HWinfo). A few questions:
1) What was the VCore before the update? (In HWinfo) ? Did you see the 1.55V?
2) Does this new limit on VCore have a built in margin for already degraded processors?
3) Does tracking VCore across loads tell us anything about whether a processor has degraded or not? (accounting for the effects of Silicon lottery?)
 
Thanks for this article. I didn't see any noticeable difference in my 14700K after the latest bios update other than my voltages going from 1.5XX down into the 1.4XX range.
 
I installed the update for my 13600K system and I'm sure I'll never notice a difference in performance.

I think the real comparison is between the new microcode and the initial version that was used for the day 1 13XXX and 14XXX reviews.
 
Iron Bars said:
The uCode update did not change the power draw, nor are the boost clocks much lower. The max voltage was lower however (1.495 V in HWinfo). A few questions:
1) What was the VCore before the update? (In HWinfo) ? Did you see the 1.55V?
2) Does this new limit on VCore have a built in margin for already degraded processors?
3) Does tracking VCore across loads tell us anything about whether a processor has degraded or not? (accounting for the effects of Silicon lottery?)
Click to expand...
Just from what i seen, before the update my cpu voltage was in the 1.35 to 1.39volts range. After the update it was in the 1.45-1.49. I wasn't having any stability issues since my cpu wasn't running on that 4000watt profile for very long before i turned it off cause all issues.
Currently i have turned off unvolt protection so i can undervolt -0.1volts to be back where it was and gonna go lower to see help like did on my rtx4070s
 
Iron Bars said:
The uCode update did not change the power draw, nor are the boost clocks much lower. The max voltage was lower however (1.495 V in HWinfo). A few questions:
1) What was the VCore before the update? (In HWinfo) ? Did you see the 1.55V?
2) Does this new limit on VCore have a built in margin for already degraded processors?
3) Does tracking VCore across loads tell us anything about whether a processor has degraded or not? (accounting for the effects of Silicon lottery?)
Click to expand...
From watching Buildzoid's video on the update, he had easily captured 1.58V+ on the VCore prior to the update, and not able to trigger the scope after the update.
 
Space_Ranger said:
From watching Buildzoid's video on the update, he had easily captured 1.58V+ on the VCore prior to the update, and not able to trigger the scope after the update.
Click to expand...
Wow! That is crazy. However, it is important to ensure that such transients are not due to instrument/environment errors. Perhaps I ought to watch that video.
 
Certainly not the terrible impact we had all feared, but I am still not convinced this was the only root cause and that it fixes the problem.

Time will tell.
 
igor_kavinski said:
Time hasn't been kind to Raptor Lake: https://www.overclock.net/posts/29521182/
Click to expand...
What's rough is that with the performance issues on Arrow Lake, Raptor Lake is getting a boost.

Also folks that held on to LGA1700 sockets might want to swap out; doesn't have to be the top SKU either, depending on what they're coming from / what they want to do. Those CPUs, especially the ones with eight E-cores, make great servers too.
 
Luckily I got my 14700K shortly before the microcode updates and updated to them as soon as they were available. Still chugging along.
 
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