i7 860 Turbo Mode

[Soundtweaker]

Im building a DAW and I use Cakewalk Sonar which is a multicore app and was wondering if the i7 860 Turbo mode is active on all 4 cores
or does it only over clock the first 2 cores.

Thanks.

 

[unclewebb]

The number of bins of turbo boost you get depends on the number of active cores at any instant in time.

An i7-860 has a default multiplier of 21. If turbo boost is enabled then you will get a +1 turbo boost up to 22 on all 4 cores, all the time.

If you enable C3/C6, this allows inactive cores to enter the C3/C6 sleep state. Now when one core is in the active state and the other 3 are in the inactive C3/C6 state, it will be able to use a +5 turbo boost which is a 26 multiplier. When 2 cores enter the active state, this will drop down to +4 or a 25 times multiplier. When 3 or 4 cores are active it will drop down to a maximum of 22.

All active cores use the same multiplier. Depending on what options you choose in the bios, the multiplier can be changing internally hundreds of times a second.

The best software to monitor this behavior is i7 Turbo which is included in this download:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/RealTempBeta.zip