MSI Offers BIOS Guide To Improve Gaming Stability With Intel 14th & 13th Gen CPUs

MSI has released a BIOS guide helping PC owners with their motherboards to improve gaming stability with Intel 14th & 13th gen CPUs.

[Press Release]: According to some reports, a minority of Intel Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K processors may experience instability while gaming or under heavy workloads. If you're encountering this issue, here are some workarounds recommended by Intel.

MSI BIOS provides a quick way to restore the processor's power and current limits to default settings through “CPU Cooler Tuning”. Simply navigate to the CPU Cooler Tuning menu and select "Boxed Cooler" to revert to a Power Limit of 253W. However, please note that restoring the power and current limits to default may slightly decrease CPU performance.

You can restore the CPU voltage behavior to default settings by selecting the "Intel Default" option in MSI BIOS's "CPU Lite Load Control". Keep in mind that default settings may increase the CPU's voltage.

By following these steps, you can address stability issues and optimize the gaming experience for Intel Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K processors.

Note: How to Lower the Default CPU Voltage?

If you find that the Intel Default CPU voltage is too high and you wish to lower it, you can manually adjust it through “Normal” mode in “CPU Lite Load Control”. It's recommended to start from Mode 15 and gradually decrease the voltage by trying lower modes (e.g., Mode 14, Mode 13, Mode 12…) until you find the lowest stable mode.

Alternatively, you can select the "Advanced" mode in CPU Lite Load Control and manually input a lower "CPU AC Loadline" value to decrease the CPU voltage.

[Journalist's Note]: While it is undoubtedly appreciative to see firms like MSI step up immediately to cater to the large audience that is currently facing instability issues with 14th & 13th Gen Intel CPUs, we still haven't seen an official statement on the matter from Intel themselves. Moreover, with the mitigations listed by ASUS and MSI, users are experiencing significant performance downgrades, up to 15% in some cases.

This is bad news for Intel as the difference between Intel & AMD CPUs is already thin and with such performance downgrades, AMD will ultimately lead the performance charts in many games. Not only that, AMD is the more efficient solution here and they are less prone to such issues which means that users who are planning to upgrade to Intel's high-end 13th or 14th Gen CPUs might find the AMD options more attractive.

For those currently experiencing such instabilities, we advise you to adhere to solutions posted by your respective motherboard manufacturers like MSI and ASUS, but if you are not accustomed to the BIOS procedure and on navigating through it, we suggest you wait for Intel's official fix, which is expected to drop by soon, considering that the issue has grown to new levels.

News Source: MSI