Intel is experiencing a serious crisis, with numerous reports of 13th and 14th-generation processors presenting problems and affecting not only users but also companies and businesses. So much so that, this week, it was Epic Games' turn to announce that it is replacing Intel CPUs with the Ryzen 9 9950X in the Unreal Engine due to the instabilities presented by the Blue Team's components.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Unreal Engine supervisor Dylan Browne pointed out that machines equipped with Intel Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K processors used at the company have been experiencing failure rates above 50% over the past year.
For those curious at work our failure rate for our 13900k and 14900k machines is about 50% so far, any new machine builds going to be 9950x's, production environments need reliability#intel
— Dylan Browne (@DylserX) July 23, 2024
Two exhibited the instability right away, and a few took a bit to start showing up, it's hard to know , this is all Unreal Engine work
— Dylan Browne (@DylserX) July 23, 2024
Still, according to Browne,
the problems presented by CPUs do not follow any pattern. He mentions that the
vast majority of PCs use ASUS ROG motherboards and that even after reducing the
power limit, the failures continued to be present. The situation is so random
that two 13th-generation models started to malfunction when they came out of
the box and were installed.
Unreal Engine chooses AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
This entire situation occurs as professionals work on the development and maintenance of Unreal Engine 5, one of the most important and popular in the video game market. Precisely for this reason, the executive explains that "production environments need reliability" and therefore the company is migrating to the upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X, AMD's top-of-the-line processor scheduled for launch on August 18th.
Although it has a lower core count than Intel models, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X will benefit from the new Zen 5 microarchitecture. Recent leaked tests show that the processor outperforms the competition by up to 19% when overclocked.
According to Browne, there
are around 20 computers in the Unreal Engine offices and some of them have
Intel processors that have never had any defects. These will be kept in the
portfolio, while the others will be replaced by machines equipped with the Ryzen
9 9950X.
What does Intel say?
Intel has been working for at least a year to identify and fix the problems plaguing its 13th and 14th-generation CPUs. However, between accusations and palliative solutions, the truth is that until now the company does not know exactly what is happening.
Recently, the Blue Team confirmed that some 13th-generation models had oxidation problems during the manufacturing process — something that was corrected. This week, the company recognized a poorly programmed microcode algorithm causing components to "pull" more power than necessary, causing overheating and instability. A correction is expected for the second half of August.