SP9400 - Turbo Boost and Dynamic Acceleration

[Beautiful_Life]

My computer has the following;
Intel SP9400 C2D @ 2.4Ghz
Intel GS45 Chipset

According to PC Wizard my processor support Intel Turbo Boost and Dynamic Acceleration up to 2.66Ghz.

How can check if Turbo Boost really works? Since this is not an Core i5/i7 processor. It's a pretty rare processor so I can't find much info on it.

 

[alyarb]

PC wizard is wrong. There are no core2 duo CPUs that support turbo boost. Your CPU can clock from 1.6 to 2.4 GHz as speedstep operates on the multiplier, but that's it. download CPU-Z to verify this.

 

[Beautiful_Life]

PC wizard is wrong. There are no core2 duo CPUs that support turbo boost. Your CPU can clock from 1.6 to 2.4 GHz as speedstep operates on the multiplier, but that's it. download CPU-Z to verify this.

Doesn't some of the ULV C2D support Turbo Boost. Those 1.3 chips in some Acer laptops that can be boosted to 1.73. I may be mistake.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Doesn't some of the ULV C2D support Turbo Boost. Those 1.3 chips in some Acer laptops that can be boosted to 1.73. I may be mistake.

They do that by upping the FSB from 200 MHz to 266 MHz, your processor already runs at 266 FSB.

The answer is still the same - download CPU-z and run something to stress the CPU and observe what speed it operates at.

 

[Beautiful_Life]

They do that by upping the FSB from 200 MHz to 266 MHz, your processor already runs at 266 FSB.

The answer is still the same - download CPU-z and run something to stress the CPU and observe what speed it operates at.

Any suggestion of some single threaded application that will fully stress one core? Turbo boost only works when one core is stressed right, then second core is shut down and core multiplier is increased. Am I mistaken here?

I'm new to CPU stuff, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[soccerballtux]

hm goes from 2.4 to 2.66...that's rather silly...
it would be useful if it went from 2.4 to like...3.8...that would be worth something. But I don't see the point otherwise...

Life-- you could get SuperPi, that will work

 

[Beautiful_Life]

hm goes from 2.4 to 2.66...that's rather silly...
it would be useful if it went from 2.4 to like...3.8...that would be worth something. But I don't see the point otherwise...

Life-- you could get SuperPi, that will work

Thanks. I used SuperPi and CPU-Z.

It does support Turbo Boost/IDA. Doesn't seem like the second core got shut down though, since another desktop gadget showed activity in the both cores.

 

[alyarb]

no, your CPU does not support turbo boost. simply changing from 1.6 to 2.4 ghz and back again is not what turbo boost/dynamic acceleration is. that is called speedstep and its been around for years.

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=36693

straight from the horse's mouth, intel is telling you that whether one core or both cores are active, the factory speed of this processor is 266 x 9 = 2.4 ghz. notice how it says "no" next to the turbo boost. if you want a second opinion, you can search google for "SP9400 turbo" and the top result will be this thread.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Doesn't some of the ULV C2D support Turbo Boost. Those 1.3 chips in some Acer laptops that can be boosted to 1.73. I may be mistake.

No, those are initiated by the manufacturer.

IDA works by increasing processor multiplier by 1x(200 or 266MHz) when running single thread apps. It was available since the 965 "Santa Rosa" platform. It's one of those technologies that sound great in theory but useless in practice. Things like thread hopping never really allowed IDA to occur in real use.

 

[Beautiful_Life]

no, your CPU does not support turbo boost. simply changing from 1.6 to 2.4 ghz and back again is not what turbo boost/dynamic acceleration is. that is called speedstep and its been around for years.

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=36693

straight from the horse's mouth, intel is telling you that whether one core or both cores are active, the factory speed of this processor is 266 x 9 = 2.4 ghz. notice how it says "no" next to the turbo boost. if you want a second opinion, you can search google for "SP9400 turbo" and the top result will be this thread.

I know what Intel says, so that's why I was asking of a way to test it out.

6-9 is the normal range of multipliers using Speedstep. So that works out to 1.6-2.4 GHz. Mine's SP9400@ 2.4Ghz, like the link above says.

When I ran Super Pi, I monitored the clock speed and multiplier with CPU-Z, it went up to 10x 2.66GHz. PC Wizards reports that it has both IDA and Turbo Boost, so I wonder if the actual tech inside is IDA or the newer turbo boost and whether there a difference between the two for dual cores or not.

 

[alyarb]

well, that is strange that it will do it with both cores loaded. i just want to be clear that it's not turbo (and it's not the CPU).

turbo mode is for opportunistically swinging the clock speed of each core around a large TDP budget. a 1x increase wouldn't really help performance in most apps anyway, and the idea is that you have a large TDP, like 90 watts (your CPU only has a TDP of 25 so there isn't much room to work with there). For instance, with an i5 750 at stock settings, you can run 4 cores at 2.66 or 2 cores at 3.20 Ghz.

dynamic acceleration in your case doesn't appear to be dependent upon TDP as you can still get your free 1x with both cores @ 100%.

 

[Ben90]

CPUz is wrong. Under load your processor is running 266*9=2400mhz.

/thread

 

[Beautiful_Life]

CPUz is wrong. Under load your processor is running 266*9=2400mhz.

/thread

What program is more accurate then CPU-Z then? Please suggest. And how do I determine if the program is right or wrong?

While I'm asking this mainly out of curiosity, to those who mentioned it, this does make a real world difference for me. It's a pretty good thing if my processor can automatically sense an extra processing load and spike up to 2.66(just a little bit higher) and then go back down automatically again. I'm using speech recognition to control my PC and type as well as handwriting recognition. I need to set it at the highest accuracy I can and I need it to work as close to real time as possible. I can't turn off my other background programs, music player and whatever I'm working on at the moment, all this which has it share of processor usage. Most time it's fine, but if it encounters a tough phrase, then at least it can spike up for the few seconds, then return back to a lower state right right and thus I will get less or no lag.

 

[IntelUser2000]

http://download.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/32012001.pdf

Datasheets explain that the latest IDA has "hysterisis" which allows the CPU to work for a short time before it switches back to nominal frequency when running on 2 cores.

So yes, CPU-Z is accurate that it has IDA but it might have enough of a delay to be not showing the boost at the accurate times. Theoretically though, IDA only works when single core is active, so it won't be relevant when doing multi-threading/tasking. Plus, IDA is crap. Turbo Mode works but getting IDA to work is nearly impossible.

You can try RightMark CPU clock utility, which offers more advanced monitoring options than CPU-Z and supports Core 2 Duo CPUs.

 

[Beautiful_Life]

http://download.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/32012001.pdf

Datasheets explain that the latest IDA has "hysterisis" which allows the CPU to work for a short time before it switches back to nominal frequency when running on 2 cores.

So yes, CPU-Z is accurate that it has IDA but it might have enough of a delay to be not showing the boost at the accurate times. Theoretically though, IDA only works when single core is active, so it won't be relevant when doing multi-threading/tasking. Plus, IDA is crap. Turbo Mode works but getting IDA to work is nearly impossible.

You can try RightMark CPU clock utility, which offers more advanced monitoring options than CPU-Z and supports Core 2 Duo CPUs.

Thanks for the info. I've tried RightMark, but it doesn't recognize my chipset and CPU properly.