The “0x129” microcode update, which addresses high voltage and stability issues affecting Intel Core Gen 13 and Core Gen 14 processors, is now available for select motherboard models. The chip giant said that this update will not affect performance Intel Core Gen 13 and Gen 14 processors, but is this true or was the power lost in the end?

According to the first performance tests that have appeared, there is no significant loss of performance, at least for the Intel Core i9-14900K. This processor has scored 2,136 points in the Cinebench 24 multithreaded test with microcode “0x123” and with update “0x129” it drops slightly to 2,124 points. The difference is minimal and can be simple fluctuation system.

In the Cinebench R23 multithread test, performance also drops slightly, but again the difference is very small. Intel Core i9-14900K with microcode “0x123” achieves 38,006 pointsand with the update “0x129” will reach 38,077 points. It is not entirely true that there is no loss of performance, but it is true that in synthetic tests it is minimal.

Intel Core i9-14900K gaming performance after update

Generally occurs small drop in performance This depends on each specific game and its dependency on the processor. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the games most affected by this update and with the “0x129” fix it only loses 7 frames as its performance drops from 236 to 229 FPS at 1080p with medium quality.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider only loses one frame with this update, and the difference is already small enough to be attributed simple fluctuation. A significant voltage drop is also confirmed with this patch, which Intel says caused irreversible damage and stability issues.

This is also what the in-depth analysis of this update reveals there are no major changes in the behavior of P nucleiand that there are only small variations in the E cores The operating temperature drops slightly, but in general the values ​​are very similar for both versions of the microcode, so there is nothing worth highlighting.

The update looks good, at least for now, since then In the worst case we have a performance drop of 2.97% (Cyberpunk 2077), and in other cases it does not even reach 1%. It wasn’t harmless, but it didn’t have a major impact either. We’ll see how this update progresses and if it really achieved its main goal of fixing the stability issues of the affected Core Gen 13 and Core Gen 14 processors.

In the attached video, you can see a more detailed analysis that JayTwoCents shared.