Question Which motherboard brand works better with 13th and 14th gen Intel CPUs ?

[Reza_15]

Dear community,


Intel's 13th and 14th generation K-series processors have experienced notable instability issues. While Intel has released microcode updates to significantly mitigate these problems, I'm curious to know which motherboard manufacturer has offered the most effective BIOS updates to further enhance system stability.


Have all motherboard vendors successfully resolved the voltage-related issues associated with these processors?

 

[Lutfij]

13? I would avoid that generation of Intel processors. As for the motherboard brand question, all of them work well, just avoid Asus boards since they underperform with the latest BIOS update meant to rectify the prior generations issues. You should be good to go with MSI, Gigabyte and ASRock.

Since you're looking at the K series of processors, go for a Z series chipsetted motherboard.

 

[drjohnnyfever]

I like MSI MOBO's. From my experience, they're built well and perform without issue. Both the Pro Z690 and Pro Z790's are great. I've used the i3-12100 in a Pro Z690 A build and the i5-14600K in a Pro Z790-A Wifi build. Both run fast and reliably. The i3-12100 is a streamer build and the i5-14600K is a gamer.

The i5-14600K build isn't quite a year old yet and I monitored the Bios updates regularly and undervolted that system almost from the beginning. Originally on that build, after posting on the first start up, you were prompted with the question "What cooler do you have installed?" or something similar. 1- stock fan, 2- Tower cooler, or 3- Water cooled. I chose option 1 and luckily so.

Each of the 3 had different performance setting for the MOBO based on the CPU type. Setting 1 had very reasonable settings, but the other two allowed a lot of extra voltage and the CPU temps were too high for my liking. But, as I say, I was lucky to have chosen the first option because by the time I got it together and had read some more about the issues with the MOBO manufacturers sending out units that were defaulted, in some cases, to wide-open settings, I knew that I had to make adjustments to the amount of current the CPU drew.

I monitored the Bios updates and installed them when they became available. The last one that came out about a month ago, changed all of the settings I had made, but it was designed to keep the temps down. Surprisingly, my temps went up over the temps I had with the adjustments to the settings I had made, so I had to get back in there and change back some of them.

Specifically, I had performance up to 5.3Ghz on the performance cores and 3.9Ghz on the e-cores of the 14600K with voltage limited to 1.18V using Core Ratio settings. My temps never reached 80C with these settings while testing on Cinebench 23. The bios update lowered the performance to 4.9Ghz on p-cores and 3.8Ghz on e-cores, but temps went higher, into the mid90'sC so I went back and undervolted it again. It was a bit more involved to do that after the last bios update, but I got it so that temps went down into the 70'sC again with 5.4Ghz on p-cores and 4.3Ghz on the e-cores.

That said, the MSI board was really easy to work with and there are plenty of Youtube videos and Reddit discussions on how to tune the 14600K.

 

[geofelt]

Dear community,


Intel's 13th and 14th generation K-series processors have experienced notable instability issues. While Intel has released microcode updates to significantly mitigate these problems, I'm curious to know which motherboard manufacturer has offered the most effective BIOS updates to further enhance system stability.


Have all motherboard vendors successfully resolved the voltage-related issues associated with these processors?

If you buy one of the big 4(msi, asus, asrock, gigabyte) you are ok.
The Z series chipset motherboards will usually have a reasonably robust vrm and cooler setup.

Intel has found and fixed the root cause of 13/14th gen issues.
Here is their official update as of 9/25/2024:
https://community.intel.com/t5/Blog...sktop-Instability-Root-Cause/post/1633446#M40

The warranty on these products has been extended by 2 years.

A user only needs to verify that their motherboard includes the fixed bios.

 

[drjohnnyfever]

If you buy one of the big 4(msi, asus, asrock, gigabyte) you are ok.
The Z series chipset motherboards will usually have a reasonably robust vrm and cooler setup.

Intel has found and fixed the root cause of 13/14th gen issues.
Here is their official update as of 9/25/2024:
https://community.intel.com/t5/Blog...sktop-Instability-Root-Cause/post/1633446#M40

The warranty on these products has been extended by 2 years.

A user only needs to verify that their motherboard includes the fixed bios.

Regarding the Bios with the MSI Pro Z790-A Wifi MOBO... I forgot to include the detail that I flashed the Bios without the 14600K prior to installing the CPU. This was in February, 2024 and the board Bios needed to be updated for the 14th gen chip. It was a simple process. I imagine now, a newer Bios is on there, but who knows which version as there were, iirc, 3 or 4 updates before this most recent one. The safest bet would probably be to flash it with the newest one prior to installing.

Also of note, in working around the increased heat I experienced with the newest changes resulting from the newest Bios update, I tried working with as few settings changes for the power that I could to return the performance and temps to its pre-update level, all without success. The result I found successful was to choose the water cooled option in the Bios and then turn down the voltage on the CPU Ratio settings (I think Level 5 from Level 21 - which was wide open, I believe) and then tune up each p-core to 5.5Ghz and each e-core to 4.3Ghz. I'm pretty confident those were the numbers.

There is a thread here that describes what I did and the videos and reddit links from another poster detailing the tune-ups for the 14600K with that exact MSI Pro Z790 MOBO. I can't find the link, but I'll post it when I do.

Edit - here are the links... The Reddit link is actually for tuning a 13600K, but the steps I followed were the same and produced excellent results. The videos were also very helpful because they showed the exact settings from the exact MOBO we're discussing. And, the info in each video helps you to understand the overheating potential and how and why to address it with undervolting.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...toshop-and-after-effects.3841845/page-2#posts

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-14600k/15.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/17aogsi/quick_easy_efficient_i5_13600k_overclocking_on/