Intel Turbo Boost vs Overclocking: An Analysis of the Benefits. How to turn on turbo boost on a laptop

Quite simply, Turbo Boost is the ability to increase the frequency of one or more actively used processor cores at the expense of the rest that are not currently being used. Unlike commonplace overclocking (for example, by changing the frequency multiplier in the BIOS), Turbo Boost is an intelligent technology.

First, the increase in frequency occurs depending on the current load on the computer and the nature of the tasks being performed. For example, to speed up single-threaded applications, it is important to speed up one core as much as possible (others are idle anyway). For multithreaded tasks, you will need to "force" several cores.

Secondly, unlike the same overclocking, Turbo Boost is aware of the power, temperature and current limits as part of the calculated power (TDP, thermal design power). In other words, overclocking with Turbo Boost does not go beyond the normal operating conditions of the processor (all these indicators are constantly measured and analyzed), does not threaten overheating and, therefore, does not require additional cooling.

System Turbo Boost time depends on workload, operating conditions, and platform design.

Overclocking subtleties

Let's make a reservation right away that the frequency changes using Turbo Boost technology are discrete. The minimum unit for increasing or decreasing the frequency of one or more active cores is a step, the value of which is 133.33 MHz. Please note that the frequency for all active cores changes simultaneously and always by the same number of steps.

Let's take a look at how Turbo Boost works in the following example.

At the moment, two cores are active in a quad-core processor and their frequency needs to be increased. The system raises the frequency of each of them one step (+133.33 MHz) and checks the current, power consumption and temperature of the processor. If the indicators are within the TDP, the system tries to increase the frequency of each of the active cores one more step until it reaches the set limit.

If increasing the frequency of each of the two active cores by one more step (+133.33 MHz) leads to the system going beyond the standard thermal package (TDP), the system will automatically lower the frequency of each core by one step (-133.33 MHz) to return normal condition. As mentioned above, you cannot change the frequency of active cores separately. That is, in principle, a situation is not possible when the frequency of one active core changes by one step, and the frequency of the other - by two steps.

Turbo Boost is supported on Intel Core i5 / i7 desktop and mobile processors, but different models may have different operating modes. For example, the Intel Core i5 600 series and Core i7 900 series processors for mobile and desktop processors and the Core i7 Extreme Edition have the following operating modes.

Hello.

Not so long ago I "dealt" with the slow operation of one laptop (note that the model was equipped with a modern Intel Core i7-7700HQ, i.e. quite a productive thing) ... As it turned out later, the reasons why he slowed down in games was the disabled Turbo Boost technology. (available on modern processors, allows you to increase processor performance during load), and not updated drivers for the video card (those that were "supplied" during the Windows installation were used).

I think that many users of their devices face a similar problem (low performance). Actually, this article is just about what parameters can affect the performance of a laptop, how to check and change them ...

The material is relevant for modern laptops with Intel Core i3, i5, i7 CPUs.

Power settings

The first thing I recommend to do is pay attention to the power supply. The fact is that the default settings on most laptops are set for "optimal" device performance (that is, often aimed at saving energy so that the device can work longer on battery power). In this case, if the reduced power supply of the processor is set, the function will be automatically disabled. (which will seriously affect performance).

First, pay attention to the system tray: there should be a "battery" icon. By clicking on it with the left mouse button, you can see a window in which there is a "performance" slider, move it to the maximum.

To find out if Turbo Boost is being used your laptop, you need to install one of the special. utilities:

1. there is a special on the official website. monitor, to monitor the performance of the processor (see screenshot below, left). If your CPU performance jumps above the dark blue mark (below 2.5 GHz in the example), then Turbo Boost is supported. For testing - run some game / watch a movie, etc.
2. - in the main program window (CPU tab) pay attention to the parameter Core Speed(the frequency there will constantly change, but its maximum should reach the value that we saw in the CPU specification, in the Max Turbo Frequency column, i.e. 3.1 GHz or 3100 MHz, which is the same (see the screen below and above)).

Does Turbo Boost work on laptop (clickable). Monitor from Intel website and CPU-Z utility (right)

Why Turbo Boost May Not Work(* if supported by your CPU):

1. due to power settings (be sure to set the CPU power to 100%, see the first step in the article);
2. lack of drivers ();
3. the technology can be disabled in BIOS / UEFI (see screenshot below, Turbo Mode).

Turbo Boost (UEFI) / Clickable

High temperature, overheating

Another popular reason for laptop performance degradation is overheating. The fact is that when the temperature of the processor reaches a certain point, it starts to decrease its performance (in order to lower the temperature). If the temperature continues to rise and reaches a critical point, the device turns off. Modern two-level protection (you may have already heard this term somewhere).

By the way, the critical temperature of the processor, upon reaching which the laptop turns off, is indicated in the specification on the Intel website (see the "T junction" column).

In general, in general, it is highly undesirable for the processor temperature to exceed 70 C.

Often, when performance decreases due to the fact that, in addition to the game that the user has launched (say), some third-party "heavy" applications are running on the laptop. It is not uncommon when users catch miner viruses (which have become popular recently).

First, I recommend opening Task Manager (shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc) and sort applications by and load on the PC. Often, when "incomprehensible" processes load the system (I'm not even talking about the fact that sometimes the CPU is loaded, and what - the dispatcher may not show ...).

To help!

Not optimal video driver and game graphics settings

Because many are most often dissatisfied with the performance in games - a separate subsection of the article has taken this topic out.

Most users do not believe that just by specifying the settings for the video driver and the game itself, you can significantly increase the number. Note that sometimes FPS increases by 100% or more!

The first thing I recommend is to optimize your video driver settings. Those. set the highest performance and disable some "effects" (you can do this if you go to the video driver settings and activate the advanced user mode).

I already have 3 articles on my blog on setting up video cards from Intel, AMD, nVidia. In order not to repeat myself, here are the links:

1. AMD - https: //site/kak-uskorit-videokartu-amd-radeon.html
2. nVidia -
3. IntelHD -

In addition, pay attention to the graphics settings in the game itself. Particular attention to:

1. resolution (the higher it is, the greater the load on the video card, when it decreases, the number of FPS increases);
2. graphics quality;
3. detailing;
4. effects and shadows (if any).

To help!

Why are games slowing down (even on a powerful computer)? Eliminate lags and brakes -

Not optimized system

And I still can't help but note in this article that you can slightly increase the performance of a laptop by optimizing Windows. As a rule, it includes several stages:

1. Disable services: some of them are simply not needed by many, and they take resources away;
2. Cleaning the registry, deleting junk files (over time, many accumulate tens of gigabytes of junk files that affect performance);
3. Disk Defragmenter(relevant for HDD, SSD does not need to be defragmented);
4. Configuring Windows Startup(it's no secret that as new programs are installed, the system startup "expands", moreover, you can rarely use many software from startup, and it will take time every time you turn on the PC. Is it necessary ?!);
5. Updating old drivers;
6. Enabling performance// in Windows parameters
7. Disable indexing files on disk.

How to do it all (step by step and without risks, "spoil" something, is described in this article:

So far, in fact, that's all ...

All the best!

To begin with, in order to understand what Turbo Boost is, you need to have at least a brief idea of ​​what "overclocking" computer components is.

Overclocking (or overclocking) a computer is an increase in its performance by operating components in abnormal modes (as a rule, at an increased frequency). The most common type of overclocking is overclocking the CPU and GPU, as well as the RAM and video memory.

Processor overclocking as a phenomenon has existed since the early 90s of the last century, after the concept of a multiplier appeared in the 486 series CPU. Motherboard manufacturers, wishing to unify their products for the entire line of new processors from Intel, designed their products in such a way that by closing separate jumpers on the motherboard, it was possible to set the bus frequency and multiplier of the processor used. And the final frequency of the central processor is the product of the bus frequency by a factor.

Over time, thanks to the efforts of some companies (Abit, Epox and some others), overclocking has ceased to be the lot of a separate caste of computer gurus. In the BIOS of most motherboards, whole sections of settings have appeared, allowing even an inexperienced user to change parameters such as the processor bus frequency, voltage supplied to the CPU, memory timings (delays), etc.

The attitude to overclocking was also different for different processor manufacturers. At AMD, for example, if they did not encourage him, then, in any case, they did not put a spoke in the wheels. In addition, for the first time in many years, a multiplier unlocked "up" appeared in the processors of this particular company, i.e. allowing you to raise the processor frequency above the nominal. Intel has long been a consistent opponent of overclocking. For example, motherboards produced under her brand did not have a single option responsible for the delicate work of the processor and memory. The situation began to change in late 2008, when Turbo Boost technology appeared in the new Bloomfield processors.

The reason for Turbo Boost is the multi-core technology of modern processors. Although the first dual-core desktop processors are nearly seven years old, still not all applications are optimized for multithreading. In this regard, a situation often arises when one or two cores are loaded by almost 100%, and the rest are "resting" at this time. In such a situation, the new processors receive minimal advantages over their single-core predecessors. And Turbo Boost allows you to automatically raise the frequency of loaded cores for a while, thereby increasing both the real and the apparent speed of the processor in this particular task. At the same time, the automation does not allow the processor to go beyond the thermal package assigned to it by the manufacturer. In other words, the processor in such an abnormal mode will not emit more heat than the standard one is able to remove from it.

Turbo Boost is currently supported by most (but not all!) Intel Core i processors. The budget Pentium and Celeron are, unfortunately, deprived of it. Each processor model, along with the nominal frequency, has a maximum "overclocking" frequency. For example, the 870 processor at a nominal frequency of 2.93 GHz in Turbo Boost mode can be overclocked to a fairly impressive 3.6 GHz.

Those who do not know how to enable Turbo Boost can be reassured: by default this option is enabled in modern BIOS "ah (if, of course, the processor installed in the computer supports it). As a rule, the menu item responsible for the operation of this technology is called or "Turbo Boost", or "Turbo mode", or something very similar. In advanced firmware designed for experienced users, it is possible not only to enable / disable this mode (the parameter Sometimes it is even allowed to increase the maximum thermal package of the processor.The latter function allows the CPU to work in turbo mode for a longer time or simultaneously maintain an increased frequency on more cores.

Also, the Turbo Boost Technology Driver must be installed in the system, which allows modern operating systems to ensure their correct interaction with the motherboard BIOS.

Recently, AMD has also used an analogue of turbo boost technology - TurboCore in some generations of its processors. In fact, it doesn’t differ from Intel’s technology except for its name.

Introduction

I remember a computer I bought back in 1998. He used a Pentium II 233 processor on an Intel Deschutes core with an Asus P2B motherboard. The system was fast, but I wanted to do something more interesting with it. And I started by installing a third party cooler. Now I don't remember exactly what performance potential I was able to squeeze out, but I remember that it seemed to me insufficient. At some point, I opened the plastic cartridge of the slot processor and started experimenting with Peltier coolers to get even better cooling. In the end, I got a stable processor at 400 MHz - on the same level as the most expensive models at the time, but significantly cheaper.

Of course, overclocking today gives a much more significant boost than 166 MHz. But the principles remain the same: take a processor running at the nominal clock speeds, and then squeeze the maximum out of it, trying to achieve the performance of high-end and more expensive models. With a little effort, it is quite easy to get the $ 300 Core i7-920 to run at the performance level of the $ 1,000 Core i7-975 Extreme without compromising reliability.

How about automatic overclocking?

Overclocking in general has always been a difficult issue for AMD and Intel, which did not officially support this practice, and also void the warranty if the CPU showed signs of tampering. However, in public, both manufacturers are trying to win the trust of enthusiasts by offering overclocking utilities, supporting aggressive BIOS settings, and even selling processors with an unlocked multiplier. However, experienced users have always known that free cheese is only in a mousetrap, so killing the CPU with too much voltage is an acceptable risk.

But with the advent of Turbo Boost technology for Intel Core i7 processors for LGA 1366 and the subsequent release of a more aggressive implementation with Core i5 and Core i7 processors for LGA 1156, Intel implemented its own intelligent overclocking technology, which takes into account several different factors: voltage, amperage, temperature, and Operating system p-states related to CPU load.

By tracking all of these parameters, Intel Embedded Management can improve performance by increasing the clock speed in situations where the processor's maximum thermal package (TDP) has not been reached. By turning off unused cores and, thus, reducing power consumption, the processor frees up more potential for single-threaded loads, a little less for two active threads, even less for three loaded cores, and so on. As a result, Intel's "auto-overclocking" is an elegant and consistent way to maximize performance without exceeding the TDP for any processor in question (130W for the Intel Bloomfield processor and 95W for the Lynnfield processor).

Can you do better?

When we found that the Core i7-860 and -870 processors accelerated to an impressive 667 MHz in single-threaded applications, we began to ask ourselves the question: should the advanced user independently overclock the processor, risking ruining a good CPU, or just rely on Intel dynamic overclocking. ? No, we don't want to appear lazy. Hopefully, there are tangible benefits for the enthusiast that provide better performance. But we still don't want to consign to oblivion the efforts Intel engineers made to optimize Nehalem for balanced performance in single- and multi-threaded applications.

We decided on a small experiment: we took the Core i5-750 and Core i7-860 processors, overclocked each of them, and then compared the results of the two processors at the nominal frequencies with the active and disabled Turbo Boost technology. Of course, there are Intel samples in our laboratory, but we cannot reliably consider them to be representative of retail models. So we bought both processors from Newegg just to make sure they match. We considered using a boxed Intel cooler, but in the end we decided that we would never get 4 GHz or more if we did not purchase a third-party cooler. Therefore, for the tests we took the Thermalright MUX-120 model.

Preparing for comparison

Processors

As already mentioned, we used retail versions of the Core i5-750 and Core i7-860 processors in our experiment - two models, in our opinion, are the most interesting for enthusiasts. The i5-750 is priced at $ 200 and can run reliably at 4 GHz or higher, while the i7-860 is a $ 300 alternative with Hyper-Threading support, 2.8 GHz base clock speed and optional Turbo Boost step with one active thread. ...

Why didn't we take the Core i7-920 processor? This is also a very interesting option, especially if you are planning to build a high-end gaming system and you need the additional PCI Express 2.0 lanes that the Intel X58 chipset has. But for about the same price as the Core i7-860, the i7-920 adds a third memory channel, loses 133 MHz of base clock speed, and offers a less aggressive Turbo Boost mode. Besides, buying a processor for LGA 1366 means purchasing an expensive motherboard based on Intel X58. The Lynnfield and P55 are more suited to those enthusiasts who are interested in the optimal price / performance ratio of a new build.

Motherboard

Our choice of motherboard will confuse some users, but we chose the Intel DP55KG for several reasons.

Let's start with the technical ones: we originally planned to use our Asus Maximus III Formula motherboard. But after updating the board to the latest BIOS version published on the company's website, it stopped working stably with our retail CPU and Corsair Dominator memory kit. We were probably just out of luck, so we went with the Gigabyte P55A-UD6 motherboard, which worked fine with Turbo Boost enabled, but didn't do as well with Turbo Boost disabled. The tests were successful, but when launching applications and while navigating Windows, it felt like we were not looking at a powerful machine, but a Pentium II from ten years ago.

Therefore, in search of a simple solution, we switched to the Intel DP55KG motherboard, which performed well in the last tested models on Intel P55... If any motherboard was supposed to work as expected, it is Intel's own enthusiast model. As you might expect, the Kingsburg motherboard coped with our task, so we continued our tests.

Then we tried to eliminate bottlenecks. The ATI Radeon HD 5850 graphics card is perfect for the budget enthusiast, and Intel's second generation 160GB SSD minimizes storage problems. Two 2GB Corsair DDR3-1600 Dominator GT DDR3-2200 8-8-8 modules allowed us to operate at DDR3-1600 frequencies without any stability issues.

Test configuration

Tests and settings

Our first test results were already quite interesting. We see that the Turbo Boost technology provides the smallest performance gain based on the overall PCMark Vantage score. Meanwhile, overclocking leads to a significant gap between both processors. Turbo Boost proved to be much more effective in the "TV and Movies" and "Productivity" tests, although overclocking is even more beneficial in both cases, as you would expect.

Interestingly, the Hyper-Threading technology gives a minimal advantage - we can see this in all test runs of this package. Of course, this package relies on features built into Windows 7, so it is likely that the operating system components are not as well optimized for Hyper-Threading as Microsoft is trying to lead us to believe.

Turbo Boost has very little effect on the overall 3DMark Vantage results, but at least gives a noticeable advantage in the CPU benchmark. In GPU benchmarks, we don't see any noticeable effect. However, manual overclocking in GPU tests is also weak. But this is not surprising. Both CPUs are fast enough not to be a bottleneck for our single Radeon HD 5850, so we expect very little performance gain in games after increasing the CPU clock speed.

This synthetic test gave a significant increase due to the Hyper-Threading technology in the CPU run, which corresponds to the increase after manual overclocking, namely the quad-core i5-750 at 4 GHz is equal in performance to the i7-860 at the nominal clock speeds with Turbo Boost. Well, it remains to be seen how well these results will match in real-world applications.

The most significant gain after overclocking is observed in the Dhrystone iSSE4.2 test, where Hyper-Threading has a weak effect. In the Whetstone iSSE3 test, we see that the 4 GHz Intel Core i5-750 cannot reach the Core i7-860 running at the stock 2.8 GHz.

Multimedia tests also show that the Turbo Boost technology does not give a significant increase, but we get an increase in performance after overclocking both CPUs to 4 GHz. Hyper-Threading plays an important role in both test runs, which is also interesting since we assumed that Turbo Boost would have a more significant impact in real-life tests.

At stock clock speeds, the memory bandwidth remains almost unchanged when Turbo Boost is enabled or disabled. This is because Turbo Boost only affects the processor multiplier, leaving the base clock frequency BCLK unchanged (hence the memory divider does not change).

But when we overclock the processors by increasing the BCLK base frequency (since our CPUs have a locked multiplier), the memory bandwidth also increases, as we see in the SiSoftware Sandra 2010 Bandwidth benchmark.

We have updated our test suite to the latest version of Apple iTunes (9.0.2.25), but the behavior of the program has not changed. It is still poorly optimized for multithreading, so Hyper-Threading only hurts in this case.

On the other hand, the load on just one core leads to the fact that Turbo Boost significantly improves performance in iTunes. The same can be said about manual overclocking of both chips to 4 GHz. It's nice to see that theory is confirmed by practice.

Unfortunately, iTunes is an exception in our test suite, which is dominated by applications with good multithreading support. Let's see how they behave.

MainConcept can use as many threads as available. Even with Turbo Boost disabled, the Core i5-750 runs at 2.66GG, while the i7-860 runs at 2.8GHz. Although this test loads all four cores, working within the thermal package and allowable temperature means that we get one step (133 MHz) when Turbo Boost is enabled, which is why both processors perform better with this function.

More than Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading gives the Core i7-860 a significant advantage over the i5-750 - a good indication that for multi-threaded applications it really makes sense to pay extra for Hyper-Threading.

However, overclocking minimizes the difference between the two CPUs. At 4 GHz, both processors cope with work much faster than at the nominal frequencies. Of course, in the Core i5 we see a more significant increase in percentage, since this processor does not receive multi-threaded acceleration at nominal frequencies due to the lack of Hyper-Threading.

Let's move on to the results of the DivX codec, which is well optimized for multithreading, and the Xvid codec, which is not so well optimized.

As you might expect, the Xvid codec does not give an advantage (and in fact even loses) due to the active Hyper-Threading technology on the Core i7-860 compared to the Intel i5-750. However, Turbo Boost speeds up the task execution on both CPUs.

Interestingly, DivX doesn't benefit too much from Hyper-Threading either, which suggests a four-thread limitation. In our case, the Core i7-860 is only slightly faster. And both processors get a significant boost from overclocking - enough to say that manual overclocking is the best way to speed up performance in multi-threaded applications, and you won't get that much boost from Turbo Boost.

HandBrake is a new program in our test suite. This is a free utility that can benefit from multithreading support. In our test, we converted the first .vob file of "The Last Samurai" to .mp4 format.

Since the utility is multithreading, Turbo Boost has little effect. But again, it's interesting to see that Hyper-Threading does not have the same serious effect as, for example, we saw in SiSoftware Sandra or 3DMark Vantage. The real way to increase performance is through manual overclocking - we get a significant performance improvement by boosting our test CPUs to 4 GHz.

Our Adobe Photoshop CS4 test consists of several multithreaded filters applied to the image. TIF. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Turbo Boost has minimal effect. Hyper-Threading does not have a very noticeable effect either.

But what really helps to increase the performance of Photoshop CS4 is the clock speed. The Core i7-860 at 2.8 GHz performs slightly better than the Core i5-750 at 2.66 GHz, while Turbo Boost gives 133 MHz to both processors. At 4 GHz, both processors demonstrate comparable results, which are much higher than those without overclocking.

We were puzzled by the behavior of AVG 9, which no longer scales so well after upgrading from AVG 8.5. However, launching the Task Manager during the test clarifies the situation. When the scanner is running, it consumes, at best, 10% of the processor's resources. We ran antivirus tests on dual-processor chips and on Atom platforms - performance really slows down if you decrease the number of processing cores and lower the clock speed. However, the Core i5-750 and Core i7-860 perform at a very similar level, so we can say that their performance in AVG 9 is identical.

3ds Max 2010 benefits from both Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost technologies. Overclocking remains the best way to get the best performance out of this program. The Core i5-750 has a 4GHz advantage due to the 200MHz BCLK base clock, which is 10MHz higher than the 190MHz of the 4GHz i7-860.

This archiver is well optimized for multithreading (which cannot be said about Hyper-Threading support). WinRAR provides the minimum speed boost from Turbo Boost technology, since all four cores are active. Turning Turbo Boost off completely lowers the clock of each CPU by 133 MHz at full load, so this technology still helps a little.

However, when both processors operate at 4 GHz, the performance is comparable (and much faster than at the nominal frequencies).

As you can see, the compression speed (in KB / s) is scaled in proportion not only to the clock speed, but also to the number of available cores. In fact, the 4 GHz Core i5-750 can't even reach the 2.8 GHz Core i7-860 with Turbo Boost disabled.

Since this archiver is well optimized for multithreading, Turbo Boost has little effect. Hyper-Threading adds a bit of performance, and overclocking is again a major win.

3D games

Crysis in all three tested resolutions demonstrates negligible gains from Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading or overclocking.

This game appeared in our test suite recently. Unlike Crysis, which mainly loads the graphics subsystem, Left 4 Dead 2 scales more efficiently depending on processor performance (of course, if you have a graphics card as powerful as our Radeon HD 5850).

We see that the automatic 133 MHz boost due to the Turbo Boost technology helps a little at low resolutions, but Hyper-Threading has no effect at all. Overclocking gives a noticeable boost at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200. However, all these gains are no longer observed; you should enable anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. As with Crysis, performance is starting to level out whether your system is running a 2.66GHz Core i5-750 or a 4GHz Core i7-860.

We will not conduct a full set of gaming tests, since there is no point. In our third and final Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 gaming benchmark, we see that CPU performance doesn't always match gaming performance. This popular game is not the best choice for testing, but a 60-second run of Act II: The Gulag shows us that Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, and even overclocking to 4 GHz do not increase the frame rate.

Now comes an interesting point too. If it was possible to tune all processors to work up to 4 GHz without changing all other variables, then our recommendations based on performance tests would already be obvious. Alas, this is not the case.

The good news is that you can turn up the voltage on each processor, increase their frequency to 4 GHz, and then get quite modest power consumption in idle mode. Enhanced SpeedStep is properly implemented on the Intel DP55KG motherboard even when the BCLK base clock is set to 200 or 190 MHz, which means that both of our test processors dropped clock speeds without load. Of course, we see a slight increase in power consumption in both cases, but it is two or three watts, which can be ignored.

The PCMark Vantage run graph on an Intel Core i5-750 reveals a completely different picture when the processor is running under load. You will find three lines in the graph: the green represents our i5-750 run with Turbo Boost disabled completely, the red represents the power consumption with the Turbo Boost technology active, and the blue represents the platform power consumption when the processor is overclocked to 4 GHz using a base frequency of 200 MHz BCLK and voltage 1.45 V.

It is quite understandable that enabling Turbo Boost results in higher power consumption. But it is much lower than the overclocking and voltage boost required for the stable operation of our 2.66 GHz processor at 4 GHz.

Average power consumption without Turbo Boost technology was 115W for the entire run. After turning on Turbo Boost, the average power consumption increased to 120 watts. After overclocking to 4 GHz, it increased to 156 watts, and we finished the test just 28 seconds faster.

Conclusion

In the end, our exploration of the benefits of Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, and good old-fashioned overclocking gave us some food for thought.

The first thing we learned was that Turbo Boost is most effective at improving the performance of applications that are poorly optimized for multithreading. Today, these applications are becoming less and less, but we still have a couple of programs that receive significant performance gains after enabling Turbo Boost. We also noticed a constant small increase after turning on Turbo Boost, even in multi-threaded applications, which is associated with one acceleration step when using four cores. In general, the smart overclocking built into the Nehalem-based processors gives Intel a competitive edge over AMD and its own Core 2 lineup in applications such as iTunes, WinZip, and Lame. Turbo Boost no longer affects the performance of MainConcept, HandBrake, WinRAR and 7zip - efficiently written applications that can fully load quad-core processors due to their parallelism.

There is even less sense from Hyper-Threading, but, again, we can give a couple of examples when this technology shows itself well in real conditions. Video transcoding applications, for example, are able to use Hyper-Threading and can reduce task execution time. That said, there is every reason why we would recommend the Core i5-750. This processor costs almost $ 100 less than the Core i7-860, but it still delivers almost the same level of performance with minimal degradation in properly optimized programs. Before us is a kind of modern version of the famous Celeron 300A, which reliably worked at 450 MHz.

Manual overclocking still won the biggest victory. Of course, we appreciate the new Turbo Boost feature in Core i5 and Core i7 processors, but it's important to emphasize that the benefit of this technology is most evident in single-threaded applications (and this benefit gradually diminishes as developers begin to fully use modern multi-core architectures). If the load on the processors is full, then the benefit from Turbo Boost is no longer so significant. Meanwhile, the gain that overclocking provides is constantly manifested, regardless of whether you launch iTunes or HandBrake. Even today, it’s a great time to become an overclocking enthusiast: available 45nm processors easily overclock up to 4 GHz, and recently released 32nm processors up to 4.5 GHz and beyond.

Of course, some subtleties are associated with a change in the standard parameters. First, you need to consider the risk. Running the processor at 4 GHz at 1.45 V is not that dangerous (even with air cooling), but if the processor burns out, you will not be able to replace it under warranty. Moreover, the power consumption under load increases significantly if you increase the clock speed and voltage. Fortunately, the motherboard we were using correctly reduced power consumption and clock speed when idle.

Finally, our readers should be reminded that it doesn't make much sense for a gamer to invest in an expensive processor. Whether it's a $ 200 Core i5-750 or a $ 300 Core i7-860 processor, you'll get the same frame rate at most resolutions, unless you invest in a more expensive graphics card configuration.

Turbo Boost is Intel proprietary technology for an automatic computer. In this mode, it exceeds the nominal performance indicators, but only up to the "critical" level of the heating temperature and power consumption limits.

Features of activating turbo mode on laptop PCs

Laptops can be operated from two sources: mains power and batteries. When running on battery power, the OS “tries” to reduce power consumption to increase the operating life (by default), including by reducing (CPU). Therefore, turning on the turbo mode on a laptop has a number of features..

In older models, the BIOS of devices had options for enabling and configuring this mode. Nowadays, manufacturers are trying to minimize the possibility of user interference with the CPU, and this parameter is often missing. There are two ways to activate the technology:

• Through the operating system interface.
• Via BIOS.

How to enable Turbo Boost through the Windows interface

You can influence the state of the turbo mode by setting the desired values ​​in the parameters "Minimum processor state" and "Maximum processor state" in the current energy consumption plan:

• In the next section, follow the link "Change advanced power settings".
• In the drop-down list of the "Power supply" dialog, we find the item "CPU power management".

We activate turbo mode through BIOS

This option for enabling Turbo Boost on a laptop is suitable for advanced users. It is based on resetting all settings in BIOS to default values:

• Go to BIOS.
• At the end of the menu we find the "Load Default" section.
• We reset all the settings.

To monitor the status of the turbo mode, you can use the utility Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor.