ASUS Adds “Intel Baseline Profile” Option In BIOS To Mitigate 14th & 13th Gen CPU Gaming Stability Issues

ASUS has offered a new "baseline profile" setting in its motherboard BIOS which should help mitigate Intel 14th & 13th Gen stability issues.

Intel's 14th & 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs have been facing widespread gaming stability issues as motherboard makers push certain CPUs beyond their limits through their default BIOS. Moreover, excessive voltages and power are being pumped into processors, making the silicon degrade over time.

This has been causing huge issues for gamers all over the internet, with many of them witnessing the "Out of Video Memory" pop-up while loading Unreal Engine games which stress the CPU a lot during the initial "Shader Compilation" loading screen. This has prompted people to return their CPUs, opting for competitors like AMD, and even though Intel did acknowledge the issue a while ago and said that they are currently investigating these reports, there seems to be no official fix in implementation.

However, motherboard makers such as ASUS & MSI along with the pre-built PC maker, Falcon North West, have stepped up and have proposed effective solutions for the stability issues, not only mitigating the problems but also eliminating them but the solution comes at a cost. ASUS rolled out its latest BIOS for Z790 motherboards which adds a new BIOS function called "Intel Baseline Profile" which reverts the CPU to Intel's factory default settings by lowering power limits and improving stability in games.

Falcon Northwest explains the functionality of the baseline default settings which include the following guide (In the case of an ASUS motherboard). Do note that ASUS's "Intel Baseline default" option automatically sets all of these settings as shown above without any manual tweaking.

Go To Ai Tweaker Tab

Go To Internal CPU Power Sub Menu In Ai Tweaker Tab

Go To Thermal Velocity Boost Sub Menu in Ai Tweaker Tab

Go To Advanced Tab (CPU Configuration\ CPU - Power Managment Control)

The company has also posted a set of solutions on its official X account, which revolves around some BIOS adjustments, and here is what they have suggested:

For anyone experiencing crashes with Intel 13th/14th Gen CPUs, we have a beta-test mitigation you can try for ASUS Z790 motherboards & i9 K CPUs:

1) Update to latest BIOS. Load defaults

2) Set ALL screenshot values, reboot More

3) Go back to BIOS. Check power values set vs. this table(mentioned below). If different, set manually. Our settings undo ASUS' that are outside Intel's specs. Unknown if they prevent issues & can't fix all CPUs, but are safer. While we await official news, we wanted share what has helped us.

Note: This is not official Intel or ASUS guidance

- Falcon Northwest via X

Well, props to Falcon Northwest's effort to put out a really good guide to help out not only its customers but all 14th & 13th Gen CPU owners facing these issues. ASUS and MSI have also been working internally for a while to resolve these issues and credit to them too. But this should be used as a caution for future launches and shows how going beyond the Intel set defaults can affect stability on chips.

But what's the cost of going all default? Well, that seems to have been answered by OCN forum member, RaMsITo, who quickly tested the new BIOS on an ASUS ROG Maximus APEX Z790 Encore motherboard using an Intel Core i9-14900KS. With all power limits removed and the CPU running at its maximum potential, the chip scored 40,998 points in the Cinebench R23 multi-core test but with the power limits set and every other BIOS feature disabled (MCE, etc), the score fell to 35,851 points, a -12.5% decrease in performance.

Intel Core i9-14900KS (ASUS APEX Encore) No Limits / Unlocked:

Intel Core i9-14900KS (ASUS APEX Encore) Enforce Limits / Baseline:

That's quite big of a difference and shows just how dependent Intel's latest 13th & 14th Gen CPUs are on power. So yeah, whether you stick with the default "baseline" settings or downclock/undervolt the CPU yourself, you are going to see some sort of performance impact compared to what an unstable (unlocked power) chip yields.