What really Happens to the CPU

[sailorjeff]

I have a I-5820 cpu that I have been able to do a modest overclock to 4.4ghz stable. Was thinking about this. Is the speed that the cpu boosts to? Or does ti run at that speed all the time since I overclocked thus using up more power? If overclocked will it still drop to lower speed if not being loaded.

 

[WildCard999]

It should drop to around 800 mhz (I think) when idle and then boost to your overclock of 4.4 during load.

 

[smashjohn]

If you have Intel Speedstep enabled, it will clock down. If you turned Speedstep off in the bios, then it will always run at 4.4. A Good and stable OC should allow you to keep speedstep enabled.

Also, you should be able to run CPUZ to see what it's currently operating at. CPUZ also has a basic benchmark tool; this should let you watch your system clock up and clock back down as you start and stop the test (you just have to switch between tabs in CPUZ to run the benchmark and see the current clock speed).

 

[Dunlop0078]

Depends on how your BIOS and windows it set up. If windows is set to high performance mode in power options then it will run the CPU at it's turbo clock at all times regardless of load. I'm pretty sure most BIOS's will have options to accomplish the same thing. If you didn't enable any of these features then it should drop to 800mhz when not under load on the individual cores. You can verify this yourself with a program like HWInfo.

 

[sailorjeff]

Thanks for answers. I do not think I turned off speedstep. Just did not want to waste power with it running OC all the time when not needed.

 

[TechyInAZ]

To add to what other's have said, speedstep does indeed lower the clock speed of CPUs to decrease power, but honestly, it's not that big of a deal.

When a CPU is at zero load and doesn't have speedstep enabled (meaning it's locked at it's highest frequency all the time), the power consumption is still very very low, because there are less amps going thru the CPU when idling. Similar to how a vehicle uses less fuel to hit redline in neutral vs in gear.

According to benchmarks, really all your saving is around 10W of power when using speedstep. Now since speedstep works so well (doesn't hinder performance when you need it), there really isn't a need to turn it off, so I'd say leave it on anyways.