How to have turbo boost always on, on i5 2500k

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
Hey guys I have the gigabyte z68x-ud3h-b3 and I found the intel turbo boost in the bios and I change it to enable but it sill runs at 1.6ghz on idle. Is it possible to have it run 3.6ghz always or is 3.3ghz the most If i want to have it always on ? I dont want it to speedstep. How would I go to turn this off in bios, I thought switching the turbo to enable would do it, maybe I got to set it to disabled but then its going to be at 3.3ghz I believe.
 
SpeedStep lowers the clockspeed of the CPU when nothing is stressing it. If you want the CPU to always run at stock speed (3.3GHz), then you need to disable it.

Turbo Boost is a different matter. You cannot force the CPU to run at 3.7GHz all the time. The clockspeed is based on two things:

1. Current CPU temperature. Above a certain temp, then no TB.
2. The number of cores being used.
2a. With only one core stressed, the CPU should be able to achieve the maximum 3.7GHz (assuming the temp is not too high).
2b. With two core the CPU will likely run at 3.6GHz.
2c. With 3 or 4 cores under stress the CPU will likely run at 3.5GHz.

Those clockspeeds are estimates because the CPUs uses a formula to determine the actual clockspeeds.
 

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
Ah thanks guys, so the best bet would be to disable it and run at 3.3ghz and later overclock it. I thought there was a way to force the turbo to stay at 3.7ghz for all 4 cores. Thanks for clearing it up.
 
Why not just change the windows power plan to High Performance. That should kick up to full speed all the time(or at least does on my system).

Just know that your temperatures and power consumption will jump as well(But SB is very good when it comes to staying cool at low loads. mine does not even drop voltage at idle and runs cool enough for me).
 

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
Well il give that a try, I thought enabling or disabling the turbo mode would make it 3.3ghz but thats not working so il try the windows performance option. Where do I find speedstep ? Is thats what its actually called in bios ?
 
Yes, speedstep is in bios somewhere,
If you stop thinking in terms of 'turbo' though it may help,
Basically you want your chip to run at 3.7GHz all the time,
So disable turbo (as that will attemp further boosting and kill things),
Disable speedstep (as that will throttle the chip to lower speed when not needed)
And Overclock to 3.7, theres a SB Oc guide over in overclocking to help you,
Then your chip will be at 3.7GHz all the time like you want
Moto
 

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
^ thanks man, Il check it out and for now I just want it at 3.3ghz stock to see how it performs.But yes thats what I was wondering about. For now I gotta find where that speedstep is in my bios.
 

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
Well beats the hell out of me, I disabled the intel turbo, c1e, EIST and changed in windows to high performance and cpuz still shows 1.6ghz and x16 multiplier ugh. Anything else I might be missing ?
 
You may want to try changing the setting for.

Real-Time Ratio Changes In OS. It seems to be the only other option in your bios.

Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech is off?
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) is off?
CPU EIST Function is off?

I am with amuffin on the fact that it DOES save power. And the cpu will clock up as soon as it is needed.

What is the main reason you want this idle clock speed off?

I know this is for something else(the link below), but it should force your cpu to run at full speed all the time from the OS. I have tested and it does work at the cost of more heat and power consumption.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/292915-30-high-pitched-noise-coming-area#t2001549
 

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
I feel like when Im logging into the game or any other heavy program there's a tiny lag because the cpu has to bump up the speed. I also want to figure it out as im planning on overclocking sometime soon so Id like to know how to disable it so once I overclock it wont bump me up past the speed I set it to.
 

willard

Distinguished
Nov 12, 2010
2,346
0
19,960
The CPU boosts back up to its normal speed pretty much instantly, and long before you actually get into the game. Basically as soon as anything starts asking it to perform work, it's back up to its normal speed.

The lag you get when logging into games is related to the very large workload involved in getting the game set up initially. Not all of the loading happens with the load screen up. Turning of speedstep won't make this any smoother, it's just going to cost you more in electricity.
 

kawininjazx

Distinguished
May 22, 2008
1,372
0
19,460
Try a BIOS update or manually change the CPU settings yourself. Some boards don't read the CPUs right, we had a bunch of Gigabyte G31 boards that would make 3.00Ghz CPUs run at 1.6Ghz etc. Try a new BIOS and then let it load defaults or try adjusting the settings yourself to fix it.
 
I am just trying to figure out why you want to run at 3.7GHz when you are doing nothing? Speedstep is designed to save you money by cutting the power being used down. If it is only when the computer is in an idle state that it will cut the speed down to this level and before it goes to sleep. If you start to do something it will clock right back up.


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team
 

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
Well I just wanted to know what setting to change in order to disable it, just for future references. Anyway I figured it out it seems like c3/c6 has to be disabled in order for it to work max at 3.3ghz. I turned everything back on as the temperature difference is pretty big, so no point having it being hot when Im not doing anything.

So now i got

turbo boost - on
c1e - on
c3/c6 - on
eist - on

Thanks for the help guys.
 

ashdeman

Honorable
Feb 25, 2012
27
0
10,530


I have an i7 2600K and whilst I do love the Speedstep feature, I am also curious as to how much money I will actually save. Is it a significant amount? Has Toms or any other site done a test on this? My dad is always moaning about the electric bill and generally blames it on my PC lol
 
Well if it helps any, my media center idles at 39-43 with a 5770 and about 31-39 with a 4350. So the idle power consumption of modern cpu's is very good.

My 2600K(4.4) + 5870 + 2 drives and 2 SSD's ect idles at about 90watts.

Every watt adds up. Sleep and Hibernate are great features to save power.

I will do some 2600K tests later
 

huntsman

Distinguished
Jul 8, 2009
898
1
18,995
nice speaking of idle I just redid my thermal paste on my cpu. The first time I used some shitty radio shack paste cuz thats all I had left and this time I used tg-2 and theres no difference in the temps. My i5 2500k idles in the mid 30s and one core is in the high 30s hitting 40c. Thought I'd see a difference. Maybe in the load temps it'l be lower.