From bad to worse: Intel's 13th-gen and 14th-gen CPUs reportedly have astonishing return rates

Intel's 13th-gen and 14th-gen processors are seeing much higher levels of returns than expected, according to a new report, due to the widely reported instability problems that these CPUs suffer from.

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Intel is in danger of suffering some serious reputational damage due to this whole affair (Image Credit: Intel)

Les Numeriques, a French tech site (via Digital Trends), observes that an unnamed European retailer claims to have received four times as many returns for 13th-gen Raptor Lake processors compared to 12th-gen (Alder Lake) chips.

That's a pretty astonishing quadrupling of problems requiring a chip to be sent back, and we're further told that the frequency of returns has only increased to this level in recent times.

In fact, the retailer observes that in the six months following the release of the 12th, 13th and 14th generations from Intel, all CPU return rates were pretty much identical (and presumably at a normal level).

However, the current picture is Raptor Lake CPUs being returned four times as often, as noted, and Raptor Lake Refresh getting sent back to the retailer three times as much.

Why is that particularly worrying? Well, it suggests that the CPUs started off fine, but are slowly degrading over time, as many have been worrying is the case. The more these chips are used, and they experience problems under the hood - due to elevated voltages, as Intel has admitted, and possibly other 'key' factors to be determined by Team Blue's ongoing investigation - the worse they get.

So, everything is okay initially, but down the line we see returns upped by a factor of three with the latest generation, and even more - four times - with the generation previous to that, as obviously it's been around for longer, and those CPUs have more miles on the clock. (Add seasoning with all these details, of course - and they do only reflect the experience of a single outlet).

Return to sender...

Apparently, the overall return rate for these Intel chips is around 5% or so, compared to a normal level of 1% for any given CPU family - and this is a conservative estimate (as some silicon is dealt with directly by Intel, not the retailer). Certainly, other estimations have been much higher, as we've seen (albeit in certain specific scenarios).

This isn't a good look for Intel, of course, and amidst other recent revelations that damage to 13th-gen and 14th-gen processors isn't reversible - the microcode update coming in August won't cure CPUs already suffering at the hands of instability gremlins, it's about preventing issues more than anything else - we've a feeling there'll be a quite a few disgruntled buyers out there.

We've got a further feeling that another announcement will be coming from Intel soon enough, and as mentioned, Team Blue has said it is continuing to investigate these reports and issues.