I'm running on 2500k OC'ed to 4.4Ghz with turbo boost enabled.
Can someone explain to me how the turbo boost works in an overclocking situation?
e.i:
1) Does it run at 4.4Ghz when idle and then turbo boosts upward when necessary?
2) Is 4.4Ghz my turbo boosted max?
3) Does my overclock "window" just move from (3.3 - 3.7Ghz) to (4.0 - 4.4Ghz)
If I am any where correct then can my clock "window" be adjusted to be very wide like maybe 1.6Ghz to 4.4Ghz for example
Thanks for the replies
Unlike in the pass where people needs to increase multiplier or FSB to OC, SB is designed for people to OC only when the CPU is under load. That means, at idle, it operates 3.3/2 ghz, which is around 1.6Ghz. Let say you increased the Turboboost multiplier to 44x from 38x while base clock is 100, without touching anything else except voltage, then when the CPU is under load, the mobo will increase both voltage and multiplier from 33x(base clock) to 40x-44x(OC clock). Once the thermal cap is reached, the CPU goes back down its base voltage and multiplier to 33x.
If cooling is sufficient, the CPU will stay at OC multiplier, which is 44x in this case. Turbo Boost 1.0 means the CPU OC itself by increasing the voltage defined to keep the CPU stable under full load at the defined OC. Turbo boost 2.0 means instead of just 1 level of OC, it has 4. People can define 4 seperate OC profile depending on the usage of the CPU, namely 1-4 core.
So let say you can get a stable clock (4.0ghz) with all 4 core at max load, then it means you should be able to handle 4.4ghz with only 2 cores under load and 4.8ghz with only 1 core under load.
By specifying the OC multiplier to 44, it means 44x,43x,42x,41x multiplier for 1,2,3,4 cores utilization. You can manually specify multipliers for each individual profile with its own multiplier and voltage so the profile will adjust dynamically based on the load of the CPU.
I assume that the cap is somewhere between 90-95c. Once the CPU reaches that temp, OC stops. Once OC stops, it doesn't kick in again for a while. I managed to have my cpu go beyond 98c and core temp shuts down the PC. After that CPUz states that the multiplier stays at 33x under prime95 while I set it to 52x. So if you managed to keep temp under 80c with prime95 on all cores, then your cpu will operates at OC multiplier at all time.
To answer your question, with sandy bridge, you do not overclock the base multiplier, you overclock the turbo boost multiplier. 4.4Ghz is no where near max, but it all based upon the setup, cooling, and the quality of each component.