A couple of weeks ago, we reported on NVIDIA directing users of Intel's 13th Generation Raptor Lake and 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs to consult Intel for any issues with system stability. Motherboard makers, by default, often run the CPU outside of Intel's recommended specifications, overvolting the CPU through modifying voltage curves, automatic overclocks, and removing power limits.

Today, we learned that Igor's Lab has obtained a statement from Intel that the company prepared for motherboard OEMs regarding the issues multiple users report. Intel CPUs come pre-programmed with a stock voltage curve. When motherboard makers remove power limits and automatically adjust voltage curves and frequency targets, the CPU can be pushed outside its safe operating range, possibly causing system instability. Intel has set up a dedicated website for users to report their issues and offer support. Manufacturers like GIGABYTE have already issued new BIOS updates for users to achieve maximum stability, which incidentally has recent user reports of still being outside Intel spec, setting PL2 to 188 W, loadlines to 1.7/1.7 and current limit to 249 A. While MSI provided a blog post tutorial for stability. ASUS has published updated BIOS for its motherboards to reflect on this Intel baseline spec as well. Surprisingly, not all the revised BIOS values match up with the Intel Baseline Profile spec for these various new BIOS updates from different vendors. You can read the statement from Intel in the quote below.

To all Dragon's Dogma 2 players. We would like to update you on the status of the following items, about which we have received numerous comments from the community. To all those looking forward to this game, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

Regarding Frame Rate
A large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and calculating the impact of their physical presence in various areas. In certain situations where numerous characters appear simultaneously, the CPU usage can be very high and may affect the frame rate. We are aware that in such situations, settings that reduce GPU load may currently have a limited effect; however, we are looking into ways to improve performance in the future.

Users of Intel's 13th Gen unlocked K-series processors such as Core i9-13900K, i7-13700K, are reporting stability issues when gaming even at stock clock-speeds. Hassan Mujtaba of Wccftech and Tom's Hardware have isolated the issues to power limit unlocks. Most Z690 and Z790 chipset motherboards include BIOS-level unlocks for the power limits, particularly the Maximum Turbo Power (interchangeable with PL2). By default, the i9-13900K and i7-13700K come with a PL2 value of 253 W, but you can get the motherboard to unlock this to unlimited, which basically tells the processor that it has 4096 W of power on tap, so not technically a "stock" configuration anymore.

Of course, neither your PSU nor your CPU VRM are capable of delivering 4096 W, and so the processor tends to draw as much power as it needs, to maintain the best possible P-core boost frequencies, before running into thermal limits. At stock frequencies with stock boost bins, unlocked power limits can drive the power draw of i9-13900K as far high as 373 W under a multithreaded load, in our testing, when compared to 283 W with the power limits in place. It turns out, that unlocking the power limits can come with long-term costs, besides the literal cost of electricity—the processor's stability with gaming workloads can degrade with certain hardware combos and settings.

AMD over the past months has been releasing periodic updates to its Fluid Motion Frames preview drivers. These are off-trunk drivers that serve to demonstrate the capabilities of Fluid Motion Frames (FMF), a technology that enables near-doubling of frame-rates for every game, through interpolation techniques, similar to what you find in consumer televisions. The tech works on DirectX 12 and DirectX 11 games, on Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines, and for Radeon RX 7000 series and RX 6000 series GPUs. The December 7th update is based on the Adrenalin 23.12.1 drivers (i.e. includes all changes and improvements AMD introduced with those drivers), plus enablement for FMF, although the driver isn't WHQL certified. With this release, AMD says that it introduced several application stability improvements for FMF. The company also reduced stutter and improved frame-pacing. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Fluid Motion Frames Preview Driver—December 7 Update

MSI, today, released a new AMD AGESA PI 1.0.0.7c BIOS update for all MSI's motherboard X670E, X670, B650, A620 product line. For this new BIOS release, MSI focus on and prioritize mainly for higher DDR5 memory module support and also stability bug fixes. The latest update has huge significant increase for supported memory frequency on AMD Ryzen CPUs. Below is a list of models that will be ready at the time of the release while other models will have come support in the following week.

In the screenshots below, demonstrates running a Memory Stress Test, on an AMD Ryzen R7 7700X CPU with a paired of dual-channel DDR5-7200 MHz "EXPO" certified kit on MSI's PRO B650-P WIFI Motherboard will run without any stability issues. Moreover, it also demonstrates running a Memory Stress Test on an AMD Ryzen R9 7900X CPU with MSI's MEG X670E ACE Motherboard can even achieve 8000 MHz (CL36) high frequency. A few more updates specifically on the AGESA 1.0.0.7c added extra for protection for reliability than before and also patched a few potential vulnerabilities and security loopholes.

Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy have released the v1.0.5.1 Patch for the PC version of The Last of Us Part 1, bringing general and AMD GPU stability improvements, and fixing issues seen with all Intel Arc GPUs.

According to the rather short release notes, the newest update brings general stability improvements, fixes crashes on boot that were seen on all Intel Arc GPUs, as well as brings stability improvements for some AMD GPUs during an extended playthrough. Naughty Dog was keen to note that they are still closely watching for reports to support future improvements and patches, as well as actively optimizing, working on game stability, and implementing additional fixes that will be included in future updates.

2003 : WHEN IT ALL STARTED - OCCT started as a project when I was an exchange student in Oklahoma, USA, back in 2003. Everything began following a conversation on ICQ about verifying overclocking builds sent to a database. This led me to implement the first CPU test of OCCT, and building a GUI around it. Despite being only launched on forums, OCCT was quickly spread through the overclocking community, and climbed in popularity very quickly.

2004 - 2009 : YOU PLAY FOR FUN, I DEV FOR FUN
I returned back to France, living in Lille, then Douai, and I started working as a System administrator. OCCT became a hobby - something I would work on during evenings. Some people were doing raids on World of Warcraft - I was coding and releasing OCCT in my free time. I started pumping more features in OCCT : Linpack, test reports, the 3D standard test... the latter got me into the headlines when it revealed a design flaw in AMD's flagship GPU at the time : Radeon HD4870. This led AMD to issue a response: they called OCCT a "Power virus," as if it was a malicious program. I still hear that today.

The recent escalating AMD Ryzen 7000X3D Series CPU issue has come to our attention, ASRock treats this type of incident seriously and would like to offer the most updated BIOS across our entire range of AM5 motherboards. ASRock has released new BIOS as well as A-Tuning utility for following AM5 chipset motherboards which limit CPU voltage on certain power rails. We encourage users to update to the new BIOS with the appropriate voltage settings urgently to ensure system stability and durability.

Apart from bringing rock-solid hardware products to PC users, ASRock is also keen on working with AMD and integrating the most up to date technologies into its products. If you're unsure about the risk of using old BIOS version, please seek professional support from ASRock customer service.

Avalanche Software has released the latest March 8 patch for Hogwarts Legacy, that fixes various bugs and improves gameplay, performance, and stability. The extensive update also includes fixes for online, gameplay, audio, UI, cinematics, ray tracing, save game, display and miscellaneous issues.

The changelog includes major reworks, from patching out memory leaks, improved VRAM usage, to VFX crashes, lighting optimizations with NVIDIA drivers, improved stability and performance with ray tracing, directional light shadows and shadows on trees with ray tracing, various Ansel issues, and plenty of gameplay issues, including missions, broom flight, world events, and characters. The new patch also updates the minimum Nvidia and AMD graphics driver recommendations, which could be directly connected to the improved VRAM usage, as the game was easily going over 14 GB with RT enabled on 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p resolutions.

NVIDIA has today released the latest iteration of its Game Ready driver with the version number 456.55. Marked as a WHQL release, the driver is supposedly going to bring new advancements to the stability of the latest GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere graphics cards. While the release notes don't officially mention anything on how it improves, it is already confirmed by a few Redditors that the new driver removes crashed experienced with the past version 456.38. In the latest revision, the support has been added for NVIDIA Reflex in Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, as well as support for Star Wars: Squadrons game. Below is the link to the driver download page redirecting to NVIDIA's site, and in no time the TechPowerUp download page will be updated as well.DOWNLOAD:NVIDIA GeForce 456.55 WHQL Game Ready Drivers

The change-log follows:

A stock Intel Core i9-10900K 10-core processor was subjected to FPU stress by Chinese PC enthusiast @WolStame. The power and temperature values of the processor are inside HEDT territory. With a Furmark GPU stress running on the side, under AIDA64 FPU stress, the i9-10900K measured a package power draw of up to 235.17 W, as measured using HWInfo64. The CPU package temperature shot up to 93 °C. A 240 mm AIO liquid CPU cooling solution was used in the feat. Interestingly, the processor is able to sustain clock speeds of 4.77 GHz, which is close to the advertised 4.80 GHz all-core turbo boost frequency, called for by the multi-core FPU stress.

To show that the values weren't obtained in a few seconds of test, the AIDA64 Stability Test window keeps a timestamp log and displays time elapsed into the stress. In this particular case, the all-core stress has been running for close to 48 minutes; and yet the processor is keeping up with its advertised all-core boost speed, making this an impressive feat.

NVIDIA rolled out the GeForce software 445.98 Hotfix drivers. The Hotfix was released to expeditiously correct glaring bugs with the GeForce software. The 445.98 Hotfix improves Overwatch stability, resolves F1 2019 crashes, fixes driver installation on the Colorful GeForce GTX 1650, improves HDR in some games, and includes various other bug fixes. The drivers are otherwise identical to GeForce 445.87 software released earlier this week. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 445.98 Hotfix

As independent third-party experts in the software quality assurance and testing industry for over 20 years, QA Consultants has conducted over 5,000+ mission-critical projects and has extensive testing experience and depth in various industries. Based in Toronto, Ontario, QA Consultants is the largest on-shore software quality assurance company, with a 30,000 sq. ft., industry-grade facility called The Test Factory.