Intel turbo boost just a bunk number?

my 6700hq has a 3.5ghz turbo boost for single thread.

But even when the cpu is under almost no load, cool temps, and I use single threaded apps, like mp3 encoder, which only stresses one core and does not utilize hyper threading... it still only runs at a damn 3.25ghz max.

WTF man?

 

You may have a single thread app but the system itself is using threads as well. Now albeit these OS chore threads are not running the core at a high load they exist and will stop turbo boost from running at full speed.

 

See also this THREAD for more info.

 

yeah, that's garbage. Even if the other cores have <1% load, it's still cool enough to boost the 4th core to the max.

This would mean that it's just impossible to ever hit the max turbo boost, since an OS must always run.

 

Did you read that last post from the link from Papusan above?

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-always-stuck-at-3-1ghz.802339/#post-10482213


Try using TS to compensate for poor implementations of the processor included in your notebook from the manufacturer. There are many options that some manufacturers don't set properly. What is your notebook model?

 

ok, i randomly uninstalled intel thermal, rebooted, reinstalled intel thermal, and my 3.5ghz is back.
one of those things fixed it, or maybe I simply needed to reboot, as I haven't done so for weeks

 

Just not rebooting can cause a myriad of OS issues like memory garbage collection that will eat into CPU cycles ever so slightly and lower your turbo boost.