I think there’s a real concern Xeon e-2400 may be failing at this point too. It's an open question if Emerald Rapids might have the same issues (and EMR has mesh, not ring, so this is an interesting question as to diagnosing the cause!) but W-2400 and W-3500 still use Golden Cove.

The leading theory at this point is not really voltage or current related but actually a defect in the coatings that is allowing oxidation in the vias. Manufacturing defect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTeubeCIwRw

It affects even 35W SKUs like 13700t, so it’s really not the snide/trite “too much power” thing. Like bro zen boosts to 6 GHz now too and nobody says a word. And believe it or not, if you look at the power consumption, both of them are probably fairly comparable in core power - both brands are consistently boosting to around 25-30W single-thread under load. AMD's highest voltages will occur during these same single-core boost loads, these are the ones of concern at this point - if it is just voltage that is killing these 35W chips, well, AMD is playing in the exact same voltage/current domains.

Furthermore, if it was power it wouldn’t be a problem that is limited to 10-25% of the silicon, it would be all of them.

There was a specific problem with partners implementing eTVB wrong, and that was rectified. The remaining problem is actually pretty complex and potentially there are multiple overlapping issues.

It just has become this lightning rod for people who are generally dissatisfied with Intel, and people are lumping their random "it doesn't keep up with X3D efficiency!" complaints into one big bucket. But like, Intel actually isn't all that far off the non-x3d skus in terms of efficiency, especially in non-AVX workloads. "140W instead of 115W for gaming" is pretty typical of the results, and that's not "burn my processor out" level bad. 13900K has always been silly, but 13700K is like... fine?

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i7-13700k/images/power-...

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i7-13700k/images/effici...

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i7-13700k/images/power-...

https://old.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/yehe1s/intel_rapt...

(granted this may be launch BIOS, and it sounds like part of the problem is that partners have been tinkering over time and it's gotten worse and worse... I'm dubious these numbers are the same numbers as you'd get today, but in fact they are pretty consistent across a whole bunch of reviewers, ctrl-f "CPU consumption" and the gaming and non-AVX power numbers are in broadly unconcerning ranges, 57-170W is broadly speaking fine.)

Again, even if there is a power/current issue, at the end of the day it's going to have a specific cause and diagnosis attached to it - like AMD's issues were VSOC being too high. Saying "too much power" is like writing "died of a broken heart" on a death certificate, maybe that's true but that's not really a medical diagnosis. Some voltage on some rail is damaging some thing, or some thermal limit is being exceeded unintentionally, and that is causing electromigration, or something.

You might as well just come out and say it: intel's hubris displeased the gods, they tempted fate and this is their divine punishment. That's really what people are trying to say. Right? Don't dress it up in un-deserved technical window-dressing.