Intel has finally gotten a grip on its disastrous instability problems that have been the bane of some of Intel’s best processors for nearly a year, including the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K. The update was released last week, and users are now taking it out for a spin. And unfortunately, some are reporting performance drops of up to 6.5%.
A user on the Chiphell forums tested the new BIOS patch that is supposed to address instability on Intel’s 13th-gen and 14th-gen CPUs. The user twfox saw a drop of around 6.5% with the Core i9-13900K in Cinebench R15’s single-core test, at least compared against Wccftech’s own tests. In the more recent Cinebench R23, the Core i9-14900K dropped about 2% of its multi-core score, falling behind AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X.
Those aren’t the severe performance drops we saw when Intel first tried to address this issue. In the first round of motherboard updates, users saw drops of anywhere from 9% up to 20%, and in multiple applications. Here, the performance differences are minor, and they shouldn’t impact gaming performance at all. Even so, Intel’s original post announcing the BIOS update said that the performance differences should be “within run-to-run variation,” including in tests like Cinebench.
Although the performance loss shouldn’t be meaningful in the vast majority of applications, it’s interesting to see where the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K have ended up now that the dust has settled on Intel’s instability fiasco. It also raises a lot of questions as both Intel and AMD move on to new generations of processors.
AMD has already released its Zen 5 CPUs, including the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X. However, they were met with a lukewarm reception, prompting AMD to update the power specifications of the lower-end Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X.
On Intel’s side, the company is gearing up to launch its 15th-gen Arrow Lake processors, which are expected to arrive before the end of October. With new Intel chips on the way, and performance-changing updates for both Zen 5 and Intel’s last two generations, it’ll be important to pay close attention to performance numbers in the next round of CPU reviews.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.