Intel Issues Statement Blaming Motherboard Makers For CPU Stability Issues

Intel's Raptor Lake processors, including the 14th-generation Core CPUs known as "Raptor Lake Refresh", have been facing heavy criticism among PC gamers over the last few months and especially the last few weeks due to an issue where they are unstable in certain games at completely default, stock settings. This isn't a matter of thermal issues and it isn't a case of motherboards automatically applying overclocked settings.

The problem is fairly well-understood by the community and overclockers at this point. Intel does not define strict power limits for its processors the way AMD does. It provides guidance in the form of recommendations, but motherboard vendors are free to do essentially whatever they want with regard to Intel processor power limits. As a result, to offer customers the best possible performance, many Intel motherboards—particularly higher-end boards and those targeted at gamers—will simply remove all power limits ...