My old 4790k finally died, and I need to replace both the CPU & MB. I was wondering if there would be any conflict in having an AMD CPU and an Nvidia GPU.
I want to use Bazzite on it. I’m running the same distro on my main rig and I’m very happy with it.
Any suggestions?
The number of flawed products was very small (only high end 13 and 14 gen) and it is now fixed as Intel has pinned down the root cause.
Don’t base your purchasing choices on that. The media loves to report major screw ups and rarely reports there fixes.
The number was not small. It was 10+ SKUs… which also happened to be most of the most popular ones.
Intel claimed multiple times to have fixed the issue, only for it to have not been fixed. Maybe it really is fixed this time, but who knows?
Also, stuff is often in warehouses for months. You could very easily still get an affected CPU. And intel has been very clear that they will not replace faulty CPUs. If you get a faulty CPU, you’re on your own.
It’s not worth the risk.
This is all on top of Intel having worse CPUs on a worse platform with zero upgrade path even if you ignore a lot of them being faulty, which you obviously shouldn’t.
The problem was caused by a bug in the CPU firmware. the issue is that the CPU requests higher voltages and tries to boost when it really can’t safely boost. The additional power doesn’t get used up and then decades the chip if you are unlucky. It was purely a software bug that caused hardware damage in some cases. New on the shelf units are not affected assuming they have up to date firmware. (Update your firmware always)
Also it only impacts high end 13 and 14 gen CPUs. If you are buying a high end chip that is 13th or 14th gen then just update the microcode. Also there are plenty of CPUs that are totally unaffected like the 12th gen and probably the 15th gen. Even if you have one of the affected CPUs there is only a relatively small chance of having and issue depending on the sillion and workload.
Don’t all flock to a single company. That drives up prices and limits completion. Intel has really done themselves a disservice by not being more transparent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwHVGoY-Z68
There was a two-generation long lithography issue that they had not been able to solve. You are grossly understating the technical scope of the problem, as well as the trust issues Intel themselves created with the way they handled the whole debacle.
I’m not ever going to buy a 13/14 gen Intel core unless it’s at absolute bargain basement prices. In a professional IT context, nobody in purchasing departments should be buying the impacted SKUs in the affected date range (and practically, that means “they won’t buy those SKUs, full stop”).
The problem has been fixed. As long as you don’t have a hardware fault you are fine. To be fair I personally wouldn’t buy one of these chips new. That doesn’t matter though as they have moved on to the latest gen. The latest gen has less rare performance but is more efficient and hopefully actually stable.
Intel is learning some multi billion dollar lessons right now. We need strong competition with AMD. Right now they competition is used products.
Also I would totally buy a bunch of defective Intel chips for cheap in hopes of getting one working.
There were chips that suffered from oxidative flaws during the manufacturing process which Intel didn’t tell anybody about until July of this year. You are correct that they aren’t on sale now but it’s not correct to say this was only a voltage issue.
If anything, Intel’s lack of transparency should speak volumes. They’re hoping to just mostly ignore the problem until it blows over. I still think it’s more severe than they’re letting on, but only time will tell. They’re in full damage control mode right now.
Anyone who gets scared off of buying Intel CPU’s until they see how this plays out is making a sound decision IMO. Consumers shouldn’t accept this kind of behaviour.
On the flip side, this could also make for some potentially good deals on unaffected SKUs.
Hopefully they will recover. I want options and only looking at AMD is very limiting.
I’m sure AMD is not taking any risks these days as they want to keep Intel in the sun.
Agreed. In the long term it’s better for consumers if there is competition, but that also means being an informed consumer, making good buying decisions and not being blindly loyal to any particular brand.
I also think used is a pretty good option. Sure some people might need pots of performance but most people would be fine on a 10 year old CPU.
Yeah, I just recently upgraded from a first gen i7. The performance gain is substantial, but less necessary than you’d think. I’d probably have kept going with my trusty i920 a bit longer if it wasn’t for lack of AVX.
My i5 13600 had this issue. I thought I was safe. It barely boots up now. I wasn’t even running it 24/7. Like maybe 1- hours per day for 3 months.
It shouldn’t be impacted. First update the firmware to the latest version. Next, try switching the kernel power governor to performance.
I would RMA the chip personally as Intel has extending the warranty so you should be covered. They are struggling to replace all the chips but they are at least trying.
I mean, the issues were present and widely reported for several months before Intel even acknowledged the problems. And it wasn’t just media reporting this, it was also game server hosts who were seeing massive deployments failing at unprecedented rates. Even those customers, who get way better support than the average home user, were largely dismissed by intel for a long time. It then took several more months to ship a fix. The widespread nature of the issues points to a major failure on the companies part to properly QA and ensure their partners were given accurate guidance for motherboard specs. Even so, the patches only prevent further harm to the processor, it doesnt fix any damage that has already been incurred that could amount to years off of its lifespan. Sure they are doing an extended warranty, but thats still a band-aid.
I agree it doesnt mean one should completely dismiss the possibility of buying an Intel chip, but it certinally doesn’t inspire confidence.
Even if this was all an oversight or process failure, it still looks a lot like Intel as a whole deciding to ship chips that had a nice looking set of numbers despite those numbers being achieved through a degraded lifespan.
It is definitely was a dumpster fire. It just annoys me that people are going around spreading fear. It is bad but it isn’t affecting every system. It is bad but not completely panic worthy. You can totally not be affected by the problems even of you do have an affected product.
It isn’t a good look but hopefully this is a sobering experience for Intel