Gigabyte states that the Intel 0x12B Microcode BIOS will be the final mitigation against the instability issues impacting 14th & 13th Gen CPUs.
Is Intel done with the Vmin Shift Instability issue with 0x12B Patch? Gigabyte says it's the final mitigation for 14th & 13th Gen CPU Instability Issues
Intel released the 0x12B BIOS patch for mitigating the Vmin Shift Instability for its 13th and 14th gen Raptor Lake/Refresh families a week ago. This patch is the third in the series, which resulted in fewer issues than before. The 0x12B patch was expected according to the previous reports but whether it was the final patch or not wasn't clear until now when Gigabyte revealed the truth.
As spotted by @Unikoshardware, Gigabyte has recently released the 0x12B patch for its Z790 motherboards and what's surprising is that Gigabyte states it as the 'final' patch for the Vmin Shift Instability issue. As can be seen from the support tab from one of the motherboard pages(Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX), the release notes state;
Introduce microcode 0x12B as the final mitigation of 13/14th Gen desktop processor Vmin Shift Instability issue according to Intel official
Hence, the 0x12B is the final patch from Intel as per the release notes. Intel released a few microcode patches to fix this issue, starting from 0x125 in June and 0x129 in August. It was expected that Intel might release one more update in Q4 2024 but it seems like it's no longer the case.
If you don't know what Vmin Shift Instability is, it's the instability caused by elevated voltages and has been traced to a clock tree circuit in the IA core. This results in freezes and crashes during operations, also causing permanent deterioration of the chips. With the patches, Intel did reduce the instability but the latest 0x12B has caused noticeable performance degradation.
Mitigating the issue must have been a major headache for Intel, which affected the company's reputation as it took too long to even acknowledge the issue. Intel still has its chance with the Arrow Lake processors, which are said to be unaffected by the Vmin Shift Instability just like Lunar Lake and mobile Raptor Lake/Refresh lineups.
News Source: Gigabyte
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