A new report from ZDNet Korea, whose deep throats are in the thick of it with customer service on Intel CPUs, says that customers are sending back more than 10 of Intel’s 13th-gen and 14th-gen Core i9 CPUs daily. These are usually seen as some of the best gaming processors you can use.
The problem seems to be all about Tekken 8, at least in Korea. According to the report, gamers using a CPU like the Core i9-13900K or Core i9-14900K are getting an error message saying “not enough video memory” when they try to launch the game, forcing it to close. This is even when the PC has plenty of video memory to run the game.
This isn’t a new problem. In February there were reports of constant game crashes with the Core i9-13900K and RTX 4090. Recent customer reviews of the Core i9-14900K raise similar problems, with buyers citing crashes in games after a few months of owning the CPU.
Chipzilla hasn’t acknowledged the problem until now. That’s changing. In speaking with ZDNet Korea, an Intel representative said, “Intel is aware of problems that occur when executing certain tasks on 13th and 14th generation Core processors for desktop PCs, and it is analysing them with major affiliates.”
The problems seem to focus on Unreal Engine games, with reports of issues in Hogwarts Legacy, Lies of P, and The Callisto Protocol, to name a few. In most cases, the game will report an error that it’s out of video memory before crashing. In the worst cases, the crash will cause a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on Windows, forcing your PC to restart.
However, other users have noticed strange crashes and BSODs in games like Fortnite, Returnal, and Lies of P and there are even suggestions that downclocking or undervolting these CPUs works if they are running into issues. If this works, it means that the issues stem from pushed power limits with Intel’s most powerful CPUs, resulting in system instability.
Chipzilla admits that Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen unlocked desktop processors are experiencing issues with certain workloads and it is having a think about it.
