Facts: Turbo Boost

I've been very happy with my newly purchased x201s for 2 weeks. Turbo boost is a cool feature on Intel's latest platform. (available only on core i5, i7)

In this post, I'd like to share some tips about Power Manager settings and how these settings affect Turbo Boost. All facts are based on my experiences.

1, How to tell if Turbo Boost is working properly?

Power Manager status is the easiest way. If it's working properly, you'll find a green check mark sign, saying "Intel Turbo boost technology enabled" (Power Manager basic mode display)



If you don't see this green check mark, that means something goes wrong with your settings and turbo boost is not working.


Intel developed a desktop gadget "Intel® Turbo Boost Technology Monitor". This sidebar gadget shows when Intel® Turbo Boost Technology is active and your current CPU speed, graphically.

2, How does Turbo Boost work?

The purpose of Turbo boost is to "dig all your computing potential within the limit of power consumption and thermal control". The latest Intel platform combines CPU and GPU in a single unit. For example, the TDP of my core i7 640LM is 25W, meaning that CPU and GPU share this 25W power. The original speed is 2.13G, Turbo boost can overlock the CPU dynamically in 6 levels:2.26g, 2.4g, 2.53g, 2.66g, 2.8g, 2.93g.

Power consumption and thermal control are the constraints. It has to make sure that your CPU+GPU will not consume too much power (below 25w) or overheat. If either constraint is met, Turbo boost will lower the speed or stop working.

Turbo boost works in these three scenarios:

a, Your current task only utilizes one CPU unit. Turbo boost will shut down the other core, and drive the working unit to its highest possible speed, all the way up to 2.93G.

b, Your current tasks utilize two CPU cores, but there's still some headroom within the constraints. But you cannot get 2.93g the highest speed.
(i tested wPrime many times. the default settings is 4 thread, CPU works at 2.26g and 2.4g; i manually set it to single thread and got 2.93g)

c, Your CPU works at full load but GPU is empty. In this scenario GPU consumes very little power, turbo boost will assign most of the TDP to CPU.
If both CPU and GPU are fully load (for example, gaming), turbo boost can automatically figure out the optimized solution to make sure you get the best overall performance.

3, What's the benefit and trade-off of Turbo Boost?
wPrime is an extreme example. (CPU working at full speed, GPU is idle). Turbo boost enabled, i got 24s; without turbo boost the score is 28s. From my experiences, you'll get performance increase up to 10%, depends on your tasks. But actually you cannot feel it in most cases because the CPU is already too FAST. Can you tell the differences between 135mph and 150mph without the dashboard? But even you cannot feel it, it's still better than nothing, right?

Turbo boost works automatically without users' intervention. The bad thing is, Turbo boost will generate more heat and consume more power. The best practice is to enable Turbo boost in AC mode and disable it in battery mode.

4, Why turbo boost is not working?
Under these situations, you cannot see the green check mark and turbo boost is not working properly.

a), Your computer is working in the dock station, with external monitor, keyboard and mice, the lid is closed.

The closed lid blocks the heat coming out from the keyboard. Turbo boost is disabled automatically to prevent overheat.

b), Make sure you have the latest Intel chipset and display driver. (intel HD graphics driver is a combo driver, contains 3 modules: intel HD graphics,intel display audio, and "intel turbo boost technology driver")

you'll find a new device called "Intel(R) Turbo Boost Technology Driver"


c), 3 Power Manager settings affect turbo boost.

Maximum CPU speed: "Highest" and "Adaptive" enable turbo boost, "Low" and "Lowest" disable turbo boost.

Optimize Fan control: Only Maximum performance enables turbo boost. "Balanced" and "Reduce noise dynamically" disables turbo boost.
The reason is, turbo boost generates extra heat, thus the fan will be more noisy.

System cooling policy: you have to set it to "Active" not "Passive" to enable turbo boost.

At last, I want to clear a misunderstood point:
Turbo boost CAN work in battery mode, though in practice we don't want it in battery mode in order to increase battery life. If you set CPU to "adaptive" or "highest", fan control to "maximum performance", cooling policy to "active", turbo boost will work in both AC mode and battery mode.

 

Nice write-up!

 

Great write up. +rep

 

I don't have that green mark in power manager, and there is no Intel TurboBoost Driver in device manager, but my turboboost seems working fine. Performance indicator in my task manager says often my CPU frequency is 114% of max frequency. Intel's TurboBoost monitor gadget says it's overclocked to 3.06GHz too. Wonder why there would be a difference from your case.

 

I dont have that green mark in power manager also but i do have the turbobost driver in device manager. My driver version differs from yours, seems like mines is a older version but when i try and update it says it is up to date.

 

This still makes me want to stick to Core 2's for the next couple years, at least Core 2 Quad's.

 

What does?

 

Thanks for the Facts! +rep

 

The whole article.. more trouble than Turbo Boost is worth if you ask me, more things to go awry too.

 

I'm looking forward to when all the configuration tools are "unified" and not stepping on each other (BIOS, Windows7, PM). I wouldn't want to trouble shoot it for friends. Plus, there are bugs. But the boost on my i5-520 from 2.4 -> 2.93, on-demand, has been useful, so a good step in the right direction.

 

For the vast majority of users, it's really no trouble at all. The way power manager is configured out of the box is that Turbo Boost is on when you're plugged in and off when you're on battery, and no fuss or muss is required.

 

i don't see that symbol in PM, however i observe my CPU overclocking in CPU-Z, as well as the intel driver.

i assume it is working properly, although not indicated in PM

mfg

 

With the power options in my Ideapad, I can drop my i5 all the way down to 1.3Ghz. Never knew that.

 

Good article, explains this well.

I have mine set to Passive (on battery) and Turbo is still enabled, and clocks to max speed (2.93 on mine). The first two settings are bang on in my experience.

 

passive means, if the machine generates enough heat, the system will try to lower the speed first, to keep the temperature under certain limit. the idea is to make the fan swirl as slow as possible, weight noise over speed.

active means it will never lower the speed. whenever it "feels hot", the fan runs faster (more noise). speed over noise.

from my experiences, passive mode never get overclocked. the machine just tries to run as quiet/cool as possible, max performance is not the goal.

 

I understand what you've written. But my Turbo still works using Passive. This may be true for others.

 

Thanks for this info. I use my laptop in a dock most of the time. This means I don't get the turbo boost. It's stupid to turn it off without even checking the temperature. Lenovo seems to be saying their thermal design is flawed so they won't even try to run the chip at its specified max TDP. Very lame.

 

dock is okay, but dock & closed-lid will disable turbo boost. (the point is the closed-lid, not the dock)

because the close-lid prevent heat coming out of the keyboard, the temperature increases very quickly, overclock is too dangerous.

 

I get turboboost despite my closed lid.

 

Hi wallmage,


That’s what I thought; with the display lid closed there would be to mush heat
and no way for the heat to dissipate.

<O </O
<O </O
Now with that said, has anyone tried using the mini-dock 2.0 and two external displays?<O </O
With the ThinkPad display lid opened? I ask because, I am waiting for my new W701 to arrive.
My mini-dock 2.0 arrived today...<O </O


Thank You,

 

Well I can confirm too that my X201 (i5 540m, Win 7 Pro 32bit) also has turbo boost enabled when the lid is closed.

I also don't have the green tick in Power Manager - that seems to have disappeared on PM v3.20.

 

The green tick is not consistent. Right now, with PM 3.20, it shows up, but other times it doesn't. Same with prior versions.

I just use the Intel Turbo desktop gadget, and stress the system (i.e. use PM or other Lenovo tools) to verify Turbo settings and dynamic clock speeds. I have read others use Task Manager processor utilization (i.e. 121% etc).

 

Ditto from me as well

 

HI,
this is my device manager (w510 I7-720), I dont have that green mark in power manager, and there is no Intel TurboBoost Driver in device manager. Is possible?
have you a solution?
thanks

 

The following systems are supported:
- ThinkPad T410, T510

NO w510?

 

I posted this Question/Problem in W510 owners thread but may be this is a better place to raise this question.

Question about Turbo Boost in my W510. I installed newest BIOS 1.17 and the Power manager. I set Max. performance in the BIOS and window power options. In lenovo power manager, i chose max. performance.

Maximum CPU Speed: highest for AC and Battery
Optimize fan control: Max. Performance for AC and Battery.

Well if my W510 is plug-in, then turbo boost is on(through turbo boost gadgets). If i unplug the power, turbo boost off.

If i shut down and then turn on with battery supply, the turbo boost is still off.

However, if i restart my W510 now with battery supply, the turbo boost is turn on.

Is it normal? Is it happening to everyone?
Thank you!

 

The amount of turbo boost can be changing 100 times a second based on how many cores are in the active state and how many are asleep. Most monitoring software like CPU-Z that samples your CPU once per second is not very accurate at reporting this.

If you would like to see what each thread of your CPU is up to then give ThrottleStop a try. When you first start ThrottleStop it will be in monitoring mode so it is safe to give it a try.

The monitoring panel is second to none because it accurately calculates the average multiplier based on high performance timers within the Core 2 / Core i7/i5/i3 CPUs. This is the method that Intel recommends in their Turbo White Paper but hardly any software bothers to use this method because of its complexity.

ThrottleStop also has many other options to help put you in control of your Intel CPU.

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

 

My w510 with 720qm also lacks the green check mark and turboboost info in the device manager. However, I downloaded the intel turbo boost monitor gadget, and it pretty clearly indicates my turboboost kicking on and off.

It's kind of fun to watch. I make firefox load up a dozen flash intensive web pages at once just to watch the blue line go up and down. Then I realize I'm using a >$2,000 computer with cutting-edge technology to make a blue line move, and I cry a little inside. But then I giggle a little, too, because it really is kind of fun.

 

I like to use the Intel Turbo Boost gadgets, i have it on all time. I also download the "All Cpu Meter" you can see all 8 core, the ram usage and the cpu usage. Double click the all cpu meter will open up the Window task manger right away.

 

ZoZo: do you have turbo boost while on battery? My W510 can turn on the turbo boost on battery only through restart, but not shut down/turn on.

 

Nope, no turbo boost on battery. But as soon as I plug it back in, it goes straight back to turbo. I set battery power settings to maximum performance, but still no turbo.

 

Strangely, My W510 on battery has the turbo boost. But i can only activate it through a restart while running on battery.

 

Any explanation as to why some thinkpad owners do not the TurboBoost driver in Device Manager or Power Manager. Im having the same problem as well. I lack both indications.

However, i do have the Intel gadget thingy and the blue line bounces up to 2.8ghz at times.

Im still kinda worried tho... So when the blue shoots up more than say 1.6 / 1.73, does that mean TurboBoost kicked in?

 

Does turbo boost make a huge difference? I downloaded SuperPI and ran a test comparing all 4 "cores" vs one single core both in turbo mode. They produced basically the same numbers. Maybe SuperPI is not a good test for multicore vs single core? Or the increase in mhz for a single core equals the power of all cores? That doesn't seem likely.

In case anyone was wondering I deactivated the 3 other cores in the task manager.

 

Weird I have the turbo boost manager in its properties it tells me that it is running properly but in power management I don't have the check mark. All of my settings related to performance are set to high as well.

 

SuperPI is a terrible benchmark since it's single threaded. There is a thread in the Windows forum, I believe, that recommends using WPrime instead. Search the forum for it though.

 

I don't have the green check mark and turbo boost is working properly as the intel turbo boost moniter indicated.
How can I get the green check mark?
I don't use dock
I install the driver 1.0.1.1002 ( I can't find the 1.2.0.1002 version, Nvidia)
I setup the powermanager correctly.

 

where do I get this power manager ? My laptop doesn't come with this thing.

 

Greetings, I seem to have a problem with the turbo boost thing.

[Heres the problem] - My intel turbo boost stopped working after I played a game like Dragon Age Origins. The cpu speed fell from about 3Ghz(at Turbo) to about 1.3 Ghz and remained 1.3 Ghz throughout the whole time after playing the game. Is that normal ? When I did the torture test on my cpu using Prime95, the same results happens. When the cpu was stressing, the speed went up to turbo at about 3Ghz(with turbo boost), after about 15-20 mins later, the speed went down to about 1.3Ghz . IT MAINTAIN THAT WAY,1.3GHZ, THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE TIME . While playing games, a noticeable lag can be seen after some time playing(due to turbo boost not working). Only AFTER I restarted my laptop without playing any games that turbo boost works fine. Its really making me sad

Do any of you face the same problem as I ? Does anyone know how to fix this

 

Check you system is not overheating, causing the CPU to clock down to prevent damaging itself.

A tool like this will show the temperatures.

Also, check you have the latest BIOS for your unspecified system and that adequate air flow can get to the vents.

 

But I don't see any reason for the turbo boost to not work at all despite the temperature or is it ? While gaming the temperature reaches to about 80+ degrees. My laptop is an acer aspire 4820tg btw with i7 620mm cpu.

 

Your CPU is throttling. I suggest you post here in a thread for your laptop:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/499204-acer-aspire-timelinex-4820tg-owners-lounge-61.html#post6574164