Monday, August 5th 2024
Puget Systems Releases CPU Failure Report: AMD CPUs Achieve Higher Failure Rate Than Intel 13th and 14th Generation
A fleet of recent reports have highlighted stability issues affecting Intel's 13th and 14th-generation desktop processors, raising concerns among consumers and industry professionals. The problem, which has gained significant attention over the past few months, is related to the processors' physical degradation over time. Custom PC builder Puget Systems has shared insights from its experience with these processors, revealing a nuanced perspective on the issue. While it has observed an increase in CPU failures, particularly with the 14th-generation chips, its failure rates remain notably lower than those reported by some game development studios and cloud gaming providers, who have cited failure rates as high as 50%. An interesting observation is that Puget Systems recorded a higher failure rate with AMD Ryzen 5000 and Ryzen 7000 series than Intel's 13/14th generation, with most failures happening at Puget's shop rather than the "field" in customers' hands.
Puget Systems attributes their more modest failure rates of Intel processors to their conservative approach to power management settings. By adhering strictly to Intel's specifications and developing their own power settings that don't hurt performance, they've managed to mitigate some of the stability issues plaguing other users. Intel has acknowledged the problem and announced plans to release a microcode patch by mid-August, with extended warranty program. This update is expected to prevent further degradation but may not reverse existing damage. Despite the elevated failure rates, Puget Systems' data shows that the issue, while concerning, still needs to be at critical levels for their operations. The company reports that failure rates for 13th and 14th gen Intel processors, while higher than ideal, are still lower than those they experienced with Intel's 11th gen chips and some AMD Ryzen processors. In response to the situation, Puget Systems is taking several steps, including maintaining its current power management practices, promptly validating Intel's upcoming microcode update, and extending warranties for affected customers. Below, you can see failure rates by month, by Intel's Core generation, as well as by "shop" vs "field" testing.
Source:
Puget Systems
Puget Systems attributes their more modest failure rates of Intel processors to their conservative approach to power management settings. By adhering strictly to Intel's specifications and developing their own power settings that don't hurt performance, they've managed to mitigate some of the stability issues plaguing other users. Intel has acknowledged the problem and announced plans to release a microcode patch by mid-August, with extended warranty program. This update is expected to prevent further degradation but may not reverse existing damage. Despite the elevated failure rates, Puget Systems' data shows that the issue, while concerning, still needs to be at critical levels for their operations. The company reports that failure rates for 13th and 14th gen Intel processors, while higher than ideal, are still lower than those they experienced with Intel's 11th gen chips and some AMD Ryzen processors. In response to the situation, Puget Systems is taking several steps, including maintaining its current power management practices, promptly validating Intel's upcoming microcode update, and extending warranties for affected customers. Below, you can see failure rates by month, by Intel's Core generation, as well as by "shop" vs "field" testing.
127 Comments on Puget Systems Releases CPU Failure Report: AMD CPUs Achieve Higher Failure Rate Than Intel 13th and 14th Generation
With regards to the AMD problems, anyone remember the SOC overvoltage fiasco some time ago when anything more than 1.30v was deemed unsafe? I'll bet that's what caused the AMD systems to flop.
Intel apologists were quick to point out we should disregard the reported high failure rates from companies that used these consumer CPUs in render farms, servers - that this is just product misuse, there is a reason why companies sell server, workstation lines of CPUs. Puget Systems builds and tests workstations just from such products, consumer CPUs - isn't this info invalid too? Or is this now perfectly acceptable, because the end line is "AMD fails even more", especially when you bury the point that Intel CPUs are beginning to show elevated failure rates later in their life?
Funny how nobody that have posted this article have mentioned this.
This nasty lie is brought to you by Intel, and we will start seeing more of these being spewed out by Intel's "partners" over the next few months. Despicable company.
This one may bear some comparison, depending on how much further (and/or lower) the recriminations go. And whether the story would be corroborated elsewhere.
Then funny enough, they will also say “AMD gpus sucks because of their high power consumption and heat!”
We have been in the twilight zone for a while now.
What I don't get is why Puget even uses Intel K chips. They say they build workstations, and they tame the power settings anyway.
I could also say that out of all my unused CPUs collecting dust on a shelf, none have ever produced a fault, therefore, faulty CPUs are a myth.That's a good question, too.
If anyone needs more horror stories: Puget vice president is an MBA!Yes. Hm, you can also take in inverse approach in interpreting their stats: They are careful to not turn up the power settings to eleven (or twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen). But a significant percentage of Intel CPUs still die!
They were as bad or worse than Dell.
In their eyes, no AMD cpu was worthy of even a recommendation.
I would have to guess Puget did thorough testing on finding more stable power settings, although with the conflict of interest I wonder if Intel quietly told them lower power settings would decrease failure rates, given Intel didn't admit to any issues happening since 2022 until Level1techs and GN reported on workstations and servers crashing.
Why Puget is using K sku's is a good question, they're running them at lower settings anyway so a K cpu is unnecessary, unless its due to marketing specs.Yeah good point, though I wonder what made them check if their settings were closer to base Intel specs. Did Puget do internal testing to find if certain cpus were failing sooner?
The real point is that they want you to just buy another Intel product, and not jump ship and buy AMD, which is what many would do without threats or bribery. Threats are cheaper.
And already when Zen 1 CPUs showed clear advantage, they made good presentations on how much better they were for productivity, even when normal reviews that focused more on gaming still favored Intel.
2. Why would Puget honour warranty claims on fine, working CPUs?
If they've got those valid numbers, they could've published them much earlier to help Intel, couldn't they?
My impressions of AMD used to be that that their QC wasn't quite as good as Intel, but in the last couple of years I've seen enough first hand and third-party evidence of Intel CPUs failing (even in OEM systems and laptops) that I'm convinced newer CPUs are either just being pushed too close to their silicon limits or modern, smaller process nodes are causing problems on a scale that we never used to see with the old double-digit nanometre nodes.
Puget has been criticizing the motherboard's default setting before RPL. And they did the same with AMD systems:
Why Do Hardware Reviewers Get Different Benchmark Results? | Puget Systems
AMD Ryzen 7950X: Impact of Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) on Thermals and Content Creation Performance | Puget Systems