That's the new IVB turbo implementation. It turbos up by +2 for loads on 4 or 3 cores, and by +4 when 2 or 1 cores are in use. Sandy Bridge used 4 different turbo steppings, for each of 4/3/2/1 cores used.
I can verify that this works, my 3550 goes to 3.9 GHz on loads like Prime95 or IntelBurnTest. And the turbo doesn't go down even if you get close to throttling the CPU I got one core to 102°C during initial testing with BCLK overclocking, but the mulitplier stayed at 39.
While most games use only 2 cores, a few already can make use of more cores. But the 3470 would also reach 4.0GHz with 2 cores loaded, so it'll be much faster than any i3 on programs which need only 1 or 2 cores.
Depends on the chipset and mobo. You should be able to find information on that with Google. Oh, and if you ask such a question, providing the mobo manufacturer and type doesn't hurt. 🙂
I just checked Google. No turbo OC'ing on H-series chipsets. Some seem to offer GPU and/or BCLK OC'ing, but that's not interesting. So, you're better off with the i3. But for the future: never cheap out on the motherboard. Cheap motherboards are too expensive.
Thanks a lot for the help Pilum, this is all the information i was looking for. I agree regarding the cheap motherboard, however, i had a small budged when i bought the computer and i still do now. It is ok that i am getting the i3, it is enough for what i need now, and i enjoy less the new games, too superficial for me, and i also save on buying new games by replaying the older ones.
As an example X3 Albion uses 1 core and a half, and it uses the CPU heavily, and with mods i can easily get 20 fps, so i cut back part of the mods and i get 40fps now. So as long as the single threaded performance is good, i don't care for this game if i have 2 cores or 8 cores.
Skyrim with many graphical mods runs at an average of 45 fps with high settings outside, and 90% of the time that is bottlnecked because of the CPU, not GPU, as seen by GPU usage and by that overclocking the GPU does nothing.
Another example is Orcs must die 2, after the map gets crowded by monsters and traps, i get 30 fps, and i guess it uses 2 cores only.
There are even older games like Titan Quest and Counter strike source and Dungeon siege 2, where the frame rate gets below 60, up to 30 fps, because of many monsters/effects/players/large maps. CS source is threaded, but uses 2 cores only.
I also play Civ 4, endgame i get to 30 fps and the wait for the enemy to finish turn starts to be bothersome.
I also say this as a small rant to players to keep advising a strong GPU and a weaker CPU. With my HD 6850, except Skyrim in rare cases, on the games i play the GPU usage is always below 100% and at around 25% in games like CS source and X3 albion, and this is with 8x AA and 16x AF.
If somebody gave me for free a 7970 GE or a gtx 680 on the condition i am unable to sell it or downclock it to save power would refuse it, since i would get a larger power bill with the same fps on the games i play. With mods in X3 albion, i would need a roughly 3x faster CPU than G540 to always have a solid 60 fps, which would be the equivalent of a 6,7 ghz dual core Ivy.
