Hi folks,

I recently purchased a 14900k to pair with a 4090. Unfortunately, in CS2 (and to a lesser extent MW3), my games will crash to desktop with no error message. I tinkered around with every BIOS configuration I could think of: Turning off XMP profiles, undervolting, leaving everything at stock settings, disabling hyperthreading, setting power limits, etc.

The ONLY thing that has resolved my crashes is changing the performance core ratio in the Intel Extreme Tuner from x57 to x54. I haven’t tested x55 or x56. A friend said this means the CPU is either faulty or dying. I did run the Intel diagnostic tool and it came back fully functional with no issues found. Cinebench returns a 31k score with the current power limits set to keep temps under control. Otherwise they immediately shoot to 100c when I start the benchmark and it crashes to desktop after a few minutes. My cooler is the CORSAIR iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT,

What do you think, is this a DirectX issue with higher clock speeds, a BIOS setting issue, cooling issue, or is it time to RMA?

Thank you!