how does cpu and gpu turbo boost work while gaming

[brendon1]

Hi guys. Was searching the net and couldn't find a solid answer. Was wondering how intel i5 and nvidea gpu turbo boost works? Mainly for gaming. For example I have a 4590 3.3 ghz/turbo 3.7ghz and was thinking about getting a ASUS GeForce GTX 970 GTX970-DCMOC-4GD5 becauise I have a small case. The gfx card has a lower Core Clock of 1088 MHz and a Boost Clock of 1228 MHz. Is this the equivalent of 4690+ and a 970 with a core clock of 1228 MHz? Also does the boost only kick in in graphics intensive games for both the cpu and gpu? Lastly while in boost mode is there an increase in power and heat?

Thanks in advance!

 

[lifespill]

Intel turbo boost works in specific conditions,if your cpu is pushed 100% and your temps are good enough turbo boosts enables an automatic mildly overclock to reach 3,7ghz, for an example core i5 4590 and 4690 are the same chip with higher clocks and higher turbo boost. The difference between 4590 4690 is minimal,extremely minimal so you buy the cheaper of these two.

An overclocked gtx 970 has about 75%-85% of the stock gtx 980.My personal opinion is that 980 dont worth the extra money.

 

[k1114]

Cpu and gpu turbo kind of work differently and they are independent of each other. If it gets a high load it turbos. So less intensive games, let's say a flash game that doesn't need full gpu or cpu power and turbo won't go on. Even on some weaker games and you have vsync on, it won't need full power and turbo won't go on. Just when you get it near 100% it turbos.

How intel is set up, they have different speeds depending on how many cores are being used. This can be any type of load, whatever the cpu is doing, doesn't need to be a game, as long as it's a high load. For the 4590, it's set to 3.7 on 1 core, 3.6 on 2 cores and 3.5 on 3 or 4. Most aftermarket mobos nowadays let you turbo max speed no matter how many cores are being used.

Gpus are a bit simpler as everything is always divided to all resources so they are just in load or not. Again, doesn't need to be a game, just a gpu load. Turbo in any gpu or cpu will go above the nominal tdp, so yes it does create more heat and use more power. When the cpu or gpu gets too hot or is using too much power (not a concern on desktops), turbo will go off and it will go to the normal speed.

I feel I should also mention idle clocks. Even without turbo enabled or on older hardware where turbo didn't exist, your cpu and gpu will downclock on idle. Gpus also have what we call 2d clocks, like an in between step in speeds for more efficiency. You can see the gpu and cpu speeds changing in realtime with monitoring software. Occt can show both I think but I use cpuz and msi afterburner.