Lynnfield Turbo question

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polonyc2

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I'm thinking about upgrading my E8400 to one of the new Lynnfield CPU's...with the new Turbo Mode enabled do any of the Lynnfield CPU's ever run at stock clock settings or does Turbo Mode always increase this to much higher levels on a regular basis?

meaning if I buy an i7 i870 (2.93 stock) with lets say 1 core active while web browsing will my clock speeds stay around 3.2GHz?...according to the chart below can I expect my CPU to always remain above it's stock settings of 2.93GHz (using the i7 870 as an example)?

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polonyc2 said:
I'm thinking about upgrading my E8400 to one of the new Lynnfield CPU's...with the new Turbo Mode enabled, do any of the Lynnfield CPU's ever run at stock clock settings or does Turbo Mode always increase this to much higher levels on a regular basis?
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I don't know if I would consider it "much higher", but I don't think it ever runs at stock. The closest I ever got to stock was around 2.9GHz (2.66GHz stock).

Meaning if I buy an i7-870 (2.93 stock) with lets say 1 core active while web browsing, will my clock speeds stay around 3.2GHz?
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Right, just about. The whole "Why buy an i7-870?" conversation can be reserved for another thread, I guess. ;)
 
TheQuestian said:
Right, just about. The whole "Why buy an i7-870?" conversation can be reserved for another thread, I guess. ;)
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I was just using the i7 870 as an example ;)

I just wanted to make sure that the Lynnfield CPU I end up with is not ever slower then my current E8400 (3.0GHz)
 
The i5 will be a good chunk faster then the E8400. Not to mention they OC very easily. 4ghz was not hard to hit on mine. The OC Genie took me to 3.57ghz at the push of a button with the i5. Good luck with your choice.
 
The way turbo boost works is that cores are constantly cycling between the active and inactive state. The CPU multiplier and therefore your CPU speed at any instant in time is based on how many cores are presently in the active state. Even when you are just surfing the web, the second, third and even the fourth core can enter the active state to process background activities. As soon as a core wakes up to do something, your maximum multiplier goes down and when it goes back to sleep, the maximum multiplier can go back up. With a Core i7-870, you might average 3.5 GHz when casually using the internet.

Most users turn off C3/C6 so the turbo boost is fixed and not jumping around like this. Then you can easily bump up the BCLK. If you don't like to overclock then let the processor take care of overclocking by enabling C3/C6. Both methods work OK.

These new CPUs are faster at the same MHz compared to the Core 2 generation. I think in some apps it might be 20% faster at the same MHz.
 
unclewebb said:
Most users turn off C3/C6 so the turbo boost is fixed and not jumping around like this. Then you can easily bump up the BCLK. If you don't like to overclock then let the processor take care of overclocking by enabling C3/C6. Both methods work OK.
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is it safe for the CPU to constantly be jumping around so much?...does it have any potential negative effects if done too much (over a long period of time)?
 
polonyc2 said:
I was just using the i7 870 as an example ;)

I just wanted to make sure that the Lynnfield CPU I end up with is not ever slower then my current E8400 (3.0GHz)
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You shouldn't be comparing an E8400 and a Lynnfield based processor on frequency (MHz) alone.

If you take a Corei5 750m disable two cores and clock it to 2.8GHz it will still be faster than your E8400 under most tasks.

Intel improved the performance per clk (per MHz) for all i5 and i7 based processors (over Core2 based processors).
 
polonyc2 said:
is it safe for the CPU to constantly be jumping around so much?...does it have any potential negative effects if done too much (over a long period of time)?
Click to expand...
It's perfectly safe and there are no negative effects. These CPUs are designed to vary their clock speed to maximize performance and reduce power consumption as much as possible (also what Speedstep does).
 
ElMoIsEviL said:
You shouldn't be comparing an E8400 and a Lynnfield based processor on frequency (MHz) alone.

If you take a Corei5 750m disable two cores and clock it to 2.8GHz it will still be faster than your E8400 under most tasks.

Intel improved the performance per clk (per MHz) for all i5 and i7 based processors (over Core2 based processors).
Click to expand...

Intel classifying Lynnfield as 'mainstream' really makes no sense as they perform very close to Bloomfield in most areas...the i7 870 is just a hair below the 975EE in a lot of benchmarks...Lynnfield seems very much high end to me...Bloomfield's only real advantage comes in terms of multi GPU setups...other then that it's pretty much even

EDIT: one more question...how common is it to reach Max Turbo Mode frequency settings?...can I realistically expect to hit 3.6GHz (w/ 1 core active), 3.4GHz (w/2 cores active) etc?...cooling should not be an issue as I'm planning on buying the new Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler and I have 5 Scythe S-FLEX "F" series 120mm 1600 rpm case fans
 
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polonyc2 said:
EDIT: one more question...how common is it to reach Max Turbo Mode frequency settings?...can I realistically expect to hit 3.6GHz (w/ 1 core active), 3.4GHz (w/2 cores active) etc?...cooling should not be an issue as I'm planning on buying the new Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler and I have 5 Scythe S-FLEX "F" series 120mm 1600 rpm case fans
Click to expand...
Turbo mode will always kick in as long as it's enabled in the BIOS, your temps are low enough, and the CPU is sufficiently loaded.
 
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