SpeedStep problem or normal behavior?

[sonicboom]

I have a q6600 ocd to 3.0 ghz, (333x9) and while lookin in cpu-z I noticed it kept dropping speeds incredibly fast, one second it was 2 ghz, the next 3 ghz. I was at the time downloading a large file, and raring a much smaller file. Over 50 secs or so, speed changed at least 15 times (from 2ghz-3ghz) back and forth. Is this the way speedstep works, in short bursts or is there a problem somewhere else?

 

[vsboxerboy]

start folding and disable speedstep in the bios

Well, speedstep drops the multi right? So 2 ~= 333x6 so that sounds normal, but as far as why it is changing so frequently??

 

[Forceman]

It's fine - normally I haven't seen it change so fast, but I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Mithent]

I guess if the workload is close to the boundary where it increases the clockspeed then you could get that kind of behaviour. It should be stable at 2GHz when idle and stable 3GHz with a heavy load like Prime95 though. There's no reason to turn SpeedStep off unless it causes you stability problems, which isn't common - it just reduces power consumption and heat a little at lower loads. I have it enabled, and I also have a Q6600 at 333x9.