Last August, Intel released a microcode update for Raptor Lake-S and Raptor Lake-S Refresh processors. This update had almost negligible impact on performance Intel Core Gen 13 and Core Gen 14 and it aimed to solve over voltage issues that could affect its stability and cause irreversible damage.

The update doesn’t seem to have completely fixed these issues, as Intel had to release a new microcode fix labeled “0x12B”. This is necessary because the chip giant said it has identified it new scenarios in which it might occur excessive voltage increase, and that this update will serve to resolve them.

In an official statement, Intel has assured that the impact of the “0x12B” update on the performance of Intel Core Gen 13 and Core Gen 14 processors will be minimal, so much so that it will be within the margin of error between different test runs. That means that It would be 1% at most, and that this applies to various tests such as Cinebench R23, Crossmark, Speedometer and others.

The first performance tests of Core Gen 13 and Gen 14 with the “0x12B” update confirm that there is indeed a loss of performance, and this is greater than what Intel says, because in some cases can be up to 6.5%enough for a processor like the Intel Core i9-13900K to ultimately lose to the Ryzen 9 7950X.

Intel Core Gen 13 and Gen 14 performance with new microcode

In the multithreaded Cinebench R23, the Intel Core i9-14900K achieves 37,331 points in the base profile and 39,882 points in the performance profile. When using the “0x12B” patch with the base profile, the score is 37,310 points. We are down 0.06%a minimal difference that matches what Intel said in its official statement.

The Intel Core i9-13900K with the base profile achieves 37,309 in the same test, and with the “0x12B” patch remains at 37,276 points, also in the multi-threaded Cinebench R23. The difference in this case is -0.09%, a value that also matches Intel’s words.

In CPU-Z, the Intel Core i9-14900K achieves 16,642 multi-threaded and 906 single-threaded with the basic profile and after applying the “0x12B” patch these values ​​will drop to 16,425 and 900respectively The Intel Core i9-13900K also suffers a performance loss with the base profile when using the new patch, as it goes from 16,404 in multithreading to 16,006 points, but it’s interesting In monofilament, it rises from 903 to 915 points.

I told you about down by up to 6.5%and this seems to be an exception to the general rule at the moment as we see more limited crashes in other tests. This result was obtained in Cinebench R15a fairly old performance test where the Intel Core i9-13900K achieved a result of 314 points in one thread with the “0x12B” patch, when the normal is around 340 points.

We can conclude that there is a small drop in performance at this time, nothing particularly seriousbut if Intel is forced to continue running updates of this type that continue to affect performance, there could be a very negative effect due to the accumulation of these small drops. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.