Help with CPU.

[EyyMunchian]

Hello guys!
I've finished building my custom PC and it works wonderfully, but there are little things here and there that bug me. My CPU is an Intel Core i5-2500s. An issue is my CPU stays locked at a frequency of 2.78 GHz and once in a while jumps to 2.81 GHz. It is advertised that my CPU has a base of 2.7 GHz and a turbo max of 3.7 GHz but to this day I've never even broken 2.9 GHz. This is what I have done and they all failed to help me out:

- New fan (Stock cooler and new fan both same results)
- Re-applied thermal paste after cleaning the first layer properly. (Watched a tutorial on how to do it.)
- Used Intel Xtreme Tuning Utility to investigate and stress test.
- CPU-z/CPUID stress test
- Checked MOBO for faulty problems (MOBO works 100%)
- Upgraded my PSU, 450 watts to 600 watts

Any help would be great thanks!

 

[volkgren]

Did you check BIOS settings for Intel Turbo boost settings? What motherboard do you have? What are you using to monitor clock speeds? Use HWInfo and see maximum single-core clock speed.

Intel Turbo Boost works like this: max turbo boost is for one core at a time, then in between base clock and max turbo it is incremental; so while 1 core will boost to 3.7GHz, 3 cores may boost to 3.5GHz, 2 cores to 3.3GHz, and all 4 cores to 3.2GHz (or whatever the speeds happen to be.)

 

[n0ns3ns3]

the turbo boost is a feature that can be enabled or disabled in BIOS.
I'd suggest to make sure you have the latest BIOS and reset it to defaults.

EDIT:
don't forget that 3.7 is the single core boost - means will only see it in a single threaded load

 

[EyyMunchian]

Did you check BIOS settings for Intel Turbo boost settings? What motherboard do you have? What are you using to monitor clock speeds? Use HWInfo and see maximum single-core clock speed.

Intel Turbo Boost works like this: max turbo boost is for one core at a time, then in between base clock and max turbo it is incremental; so while 1 core will boost to 3.7GHz, 3 cores may boost to 3.5GHz, 2 cores to 3.3GHz, and all 4 cores to 3.2GHz (or whatever the speeds happen to be.)

My Mobo: Intel DQ670W Motherboard
Turbo boost is enabled but only using a single core (via single core stress benching on CPU-z/CPUID) I hit a MAX of 3.1 GHz.
Only 2 I get a MAX of 2.9 GHZ
3 and 4 cores stale at 2.78-2.81 GHZ

 

[EyyMunchian]

Did you check BIOS settings for Intel Turbo boost settings? What motherboard do you have? What are you using to monitor clock speeds? Use HWInfo and see maximum single-core clock speed.

Intel Turbo Boost works like this: max turbo boost is for one core at a time, then in between base clock and max turbo it is incremental; so while 1 core will boost to 3.7GHz, 3 cores may boost to 3.5GHz, 2 cores to 3.3GHz, and all 4 cores to 3.2GHz (or whatever the speeds happen to be.)

Wow, I must be an idiot to have overlooked that my CPU has a 28x clock when 4 cores are enabled. Oops. Thanks, all!!