ASUS has added the “Intel Baseline” profile to its Z790 motherboards to revert to the chipmaker’s official power limits on the 13th and 14th Gen Core processors. This measure responds to the growing number of users reporting instability and crashing while gaming on these chips. We had a similar issue which ended in an RMA. Initial investigations have revealed that amped-up power limits (motherboard defaults) are to blame for these instabilities. Consequently, Intel’s board partners have sprung into action, prompting concerned users to switch to the official “baseline” specs.
Included in the BIOS settings with v.1202, this profile scales back the boost power limit to 253W, enabling “Current Excursion Protection” and “Intel’s Fail-Safe” for power and voltage regulation. Unsurprisingly, the CPU performance using the official power spec is lower than the motherboard defaults. A Core i9-14900KS, for example, sees a 12-13% drop in multi-threaded performance using the “Intel Baseline” profile.
On the ASUS ROG Z790 Apex Encore, the Cinebench R23 nT score drops from 40,998 to 35,851 points upon switching to Intel’s official power specifications. Following this change, the Core i9-14900KS (originally faster) falls behind AMD’s 2-year-old Ryzen 9 7950X in the multi-threaded benchmark.
Furthermore, the difference between the Core i9-13900K/KS and the Core i9-14900K/KS almost completely evaporates. A rebrand performing the same as the original product isn’t a shock, but seeing the Core i9-13900K, 13900KS, i9-14900K, and the 14900KS net roughly the same score makes the whole thing rather comic. I suppose Intel and its partners will be more careful with their “factory” power limits in the future.
