Expected mid-August, just after the (slightly delayed) Ryzen 9000 launch. It's not known, but reasonably likely that this microcode patch will lower performance

Expected mid-August, just after the (slightly delayed) Ryzen 9000 launch. It's not known, but reasonably likely that this microcode patch will lower performance of the intel processors, so benchmarks between Ryzen 9000 and Intel 13th/14th gen will be artificially favorable to Intel's CPU's. Taking a wider view - there's widespread belief that both AMD and Intel are pushing the clocks of their CPU's too hard from the factory, and it's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma. If these types of issues force one company to set less aggressive clock speeds, the other company should be able to follow suit. Then end-users / partner channels would get more stable CPU's and enthusiasts would get a little extra headroom for overclock potential to play with if they are lucky with getting a "golden" CPU that can handle slightly higher voltages. Back in the day, overclockers expected to get a 25% chance of failure from aggressive overclocks, but it was just an accepted risk on their end. Obviously CPU's shouldn't have clock/voltage/temperature curves with 25% failure straight from the factory - which Intel's currently do!