How it works: Intel Turbo Boost Technology.

Turbo Boost is Intel's proprietary automatic computer technology. In this mode, it exceeds the nominal performance indicators, but only up to the “critical” level of heating temperature limits and consumed power.

Features of activating turbo mode on laptop PCs

Laptops can operate from two sources: mains power and batteries. When powered by a battery, the OS, to increase operating life (by default), “tries” to reduce energy consumption, including by reducing (CPU). Therefore, turning on turbo mode on a laptop has a number of features.

In older device BIOS models, there were options to enable and configure this mode. Nowadays, manufacturers are trying to minimize the possibility of user intervention in the operation of the CPU, and often this parameter is missing. There are two ways to activate the technology:

• Through the operating system interface.
• Via BIOS.

How to enable Turbo Boost through the Windows interface

You can influence the turbo mode state by setting the required values ​​in the “Minimum processor state” and “Maximum processor state” parameters in the current power consumption plan:

• In the next section, click on the “Change advanced power settings” link.
• In the drop-down list of the “Power Options” dialog we find the “CPU Power Management” item.

Activate turbo mode via BIOS

This option to enable Turbo Boost on a laptop is suitable for advanced users. It is based on resetting all settings in the BIOS to default values:

• Let's go to the BIOS.
• At the end of the menu we find the “Load Default” section.
• Reset all settings.

To monitor the turbo mode status, you can use the utility Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor.

Apple has been equipping Mac computers with Intel processors for quite some time, which means that Turbo Boost technology is available to users of Apple computers. However, the company doesn't give any real control over this mode—it turns on and off automatically in OS X.

This approach may seem wrong to some. For example, if the noise of your computer's fan seems too loud or the case becomes noticeably warm for no apparent reason. In this case, you can manually disable Turbo Boost for a while and check whether this improves the situation, and at the same time extend the battery life by about 25%.

To force Turbo Boost technology on or off, use a utility called Turbo Boost Switcher. But first, you should check whether your Mac supports Turbo processor mode. To do this, check your computer model by clicking on the Apple logo in the menu bar and opening the “About This Mac” window.

Then go to the site support.apple.com and check your Mac specifications page to see if your model supports Turbo Boost. After you are sure that your computer supports this technology, do the following:

Step 1: Download Turbo Boost Switcher.

Step 2: Extract the files from the downloaded archive and run Turbo Boost Switcher.

If you encounter an application error from an “untrusted developer,” then go to System Preferences -> Security & Security and in the Allow programs downloaded from: section, select “Any source.” This will remove the restriction on installing programs that are not signed with an Apple certificate. Now run Turbo Boost Switcher again.

Step 3: After launching the application, you will see a lightning bolt icon in the status bar. When you click on the icon, a drop-down menu is activated, which displays the processor temperature and cooler speed. To turn off Turbo Boost mode, simply select the appropriate “Enable Turbo Boost” option. If you need to enable this mode, repeat this step, in this case selecting the “Disable Turbo Boost” option.

That's all! In addition, the program can be configured to automatically disable Turbo Boost when OS X itself deems it necessary. This way you won't have to configure everything manually every time.

Introduction

I remember the computer I purchased back in 1998. He used a Pentium II 233 processor based on the Intel Deschutes core with an Asus P2B motherboard. The system was fast, but I wanted to do something more interesting with it. And I started by installing a third-party cooler. Now I don’t remember exactly how much performance potential I was able to squeeze out, but I remember that it seemed insufficient to me. At some point, I opened the plastic cartridge of the slot processor and began experimenting with Peltier coolers to get even better cooling. In the end, I got a stable processor running at 400 MHz - at the same level as the most expensive models at the time, but significantly cheaper.

Of course, today overclocking gives a much more significant increase than 166 MHz. But the principles remain the same: take a processor running at stock clock speeds, and then squeeze the maximum out of it, trying to achieve the performance of high-end and more expensive models. With a little effort, you can very easily get a sub-$300 Core i7-920 to perform at the same level of performance as a $1,000 Core i7-975 Extreme without losing reliability.

What about automatic overclocking?

Overclocking in general has always been a tricky subject for AMD and Intel, who do not officially support the practice and also void the warranty if the CPU shows signs of tampering. However, in public, both manufacturers are trying to gain the trust of enthusiasts by offering overclocking utilities, supporting aggressive BIOS settings, and even selling processors with an unlocked multiplier. However, experienced users have always known that there is only free cheese in a mousetrap, so killing the CPU with too much voltage is an acceptable risk.

But with the advent of Turbo Boost technology in Intel Core i7 processors for LGA 1366 and the subsequent release of a more aggressive implementation with Core i5 and Core i7 processors for LGA 1156, Intel implemented its own intelligent overclocking technology that takes into account several different factors: voltage, current, temperature and P-states of the operating system associated with CPU load.

By monitoring all of these parameters, Intel's embedded management system can improve performance by increasing clock speed in situations where the processor's maximum thermal package (TDP) has not been reached. By turning off unused cores and thus reducing power consumption, the processor frees up more capacity for single-threaded workloads, a little less for two active threads, even less for three loaded cores, and so on. As a result, Intel's "automatic overclocking" provides an elegant and consistent way to increase performance without exceeding the TDP of any processor in question (130 W in the case of the Intel Bloomfield processor and 95 W in the case of the Lynnfield processor).

Can you do better?

When we discovered that the Core i7-860 and -870 processors accelerated by an impressive 667 MHz in single-threaded applications, we began to ask ourselves the question: should an advanced user overclock the processor themselves and risk ruining a good CPU, or should they just rely on Intel's dynamic overclocking? ? No, we don't want to seem lazy. Let's hope there are actually tangible benefits for enthusiasts that provide better performance. But we still don't want to throw into oblivion the efforts Intel engineers made in trying to optimize Nehalem for balanced performance in single and multi-threaded applications.

We decided to do a small experiment: we took the Core i5-750 and Core i7-860 processors, overclocked each of them, and then compared the results of the two processors at standard frequencies with Turbo Boost technology active and with Turbo Boost technology disabled. Of course, we have Intel samples in our laboratory, but we cannot reliably consider them representative of retail models. So we bought both processors from Newegg, just to make sure they matched. We considered using a "boxed" Intel cooler, but in the end we figured that we would never get 4 GHz or higher unless we purchased a third-party cooler. Therefore, for testing we took the Thermalright MUX-120 model.

Getting ready for comparison

Processors

As already mentioned, in our experiment we used retail versions of the Core i5-750 and Core i7-860 processors - the two models that we think are of most interest to enthusiasts. The i5-750 is in the $200 price tier and can reliably run at 4GHz or higher, while the i7-860 is a $300 alternative with Hyper-Threading support, a base clock speed of 2.8GHz and an additional Turbo Boost stage with one active thread. .

Why didn't we take the Core i7-920 processor? This is also a very interesting option, especially if you plan to build a high-end gaming system and need the additional PCI Express 2.0 lanes that the Intel X58 chipset has. But for about the same price as the Core i7-860, the i7-920 adds a third memory channel, loses 133 MHz of base clock speed, and provides a less aggressive Turbo Boost mode. In addition, purchasing a processor for LGA 1366 means purchasing an expensive Intel X58 motherboard. Lynnfield and P55 are more suitable for those enthusiasts who are interested in the optimal price/performance ratio of a new build.

Motherboard

Our choice of motherboard will puzzle some people, but we went with the Intel DP55KG for several reasons.

Let's start with the technical ones: we initially planned to use our Asus Maximus III Formula motherboard. But after updating the board to the latest BIOS version published on the company's website, it stopped working stably with our retail CPU and Corsair Dominator memory kit. We were probably just unlucky, so we took the Gigabyte P55A-UD6 motherboard, which worked great with Turbo Boost enabled, but did not behave so well with Turbo Boost disabled. The tests were successful, but when launching applications and navigating Windows, it felt like we were looking at a Pentium II from ten years ago rather than a powerful machine.

Therefore, in search of a simple solution, we switched to the Intel DP55KG motherboard, which performed well in latest testing of models on Intel P55. If any motherboard should perform as expected, it would be Intel's own enthusiast-oriented model. As expected, the Kingsburg motherboard coped with our task, so we continued testing.

Then we tried to eliminate bottlenecks. The ATI Radeon HD 5850 graphics card is perfect for budget-conscious enthusiasts, and the 160 GB second-generation Intel SSD minimizes storage problems. Two 2GB Corsair DDR3-1600 Dominator GT DDR3-2200 8-8-8 modules allowed us to run at DDR3-1600 frequencies without any stability issues.

Test configuration

Tests and settings

Our first test results have already turned out to be very interesting. We observe that Turbo Boost technology provides minimal performance gains in the overall PCMark Vantage score. Meanwhile, overclocking leads to a significant gap between both processors. Turbo Boost was much more effective in the TV and Movies and Productivity tests, although overclocking provides even greater benefits in both cases, as you'd expect.

Interestingly, Hyper-Threading technology provides a minimal advantage - this is what we see in all test runs of this package. Of course, this package relies on features built into Windows 7, so it's likely that the operating system's components aren't as optimized for Hyper-Threading as Microsoft would have us believe.

Turbo Boost technology has very little impact on the overall 3DMark Vantage results, but at least provides a noticeable advantage in the CPU test. In GPU tests, we do not see a noticeable effect. However, manual overclocking also has little effect in GPU tests. But this is not surprising. Both CPUs are fast enough that they won't bottleneck our single Radeon HD 5850, so we expect very little improvement in gaming performance after increasing the CPU clock speed.

This synthetic test gave a significant increase due to Hyper-Threading technology in the CPU run, which corresponds to the increase after manual overclocking, namely the quad-core i5-750 at 4 GHz is equal in performance to the i7-860 at standard clock frequencies with Turbo Boost. Well, it remains to be seen how well these results translate to real-world applications.

The most significant increase after overclocking is observed in the Dhrystone iSSE4.2 test, where Hyper-Threading has a weak effect. In the Whetstone iSSE3 test, we see that the 4 GHz Intel Core i5-750 cannot reach the Core i7-860, which runs at the standard 2.8 GHz.

Multimedia tests also show that Turbo Boost technology does not provide a significant increase, but we get an increase in performance after overclocking both CPUs to 4 GHz. Hyper-Threading plays a significant role in both test runs, which is also interesting since we expected Turbo Boost to have a more significant impact in real-world tests.

At stock clock speeds, memory bandwidth remains almost unchanged when Turbo Boost is turned on or off. This is because Turbo Boost only affects the processor multiplier, leaving the base clock speed BCLK unchanged (and therefore the memory divider does not change).

But when we overclock the processors by increasing the base BCLK frequency (since our CPUs have a locked multiplier), the memory bandwidth also increases, as we can see from the results of the SiSoftware Sandra 2010 Bandwidth test.

We updated our test package to the latest version of Apple iTunes (9.0.2.25), but the program's behavior did not change. It is still poorly optimized for multithreading, so Hyper-Threading technology only does harm in this case.

On the other hand, the load on just one core means that Turbo Boost significantly improves performance in iTunes. The same can be said about manual overclocking of both chips to 4 GHz. It's nice to see that theory is confirmed by practice.

Unfortunately, iTunes is an exception in our test suite, which is dominated by applications with good multithreading support. Let's see how they behave.

MainConcept can use as many threads as it has available. Even with Turbo Boost technology disabled, the Core i5-750 processor operates at a clock frequency of 2.66 GHz, and the i7-860 at 2.8 GHz. Although this test stresses all four cores, operating within thermal envelope and temperature limits means we get one step (133 MHz) when Turbo Boost is enabled, which is why both processors perform better with this feature.

More than Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading gives the Core i7-860 a significant advantage over the i5-750 - good evidence that for multi-threaded applications, it really makes sense to pay extra for Hyper-Threading.

However, overclocking minimizes the difference between the two CPUs. At a frequency of 4 GHz, both processors cope with work significantly faster than at standard frequencies. Of course, with the Core i5 we see a more significant increase in percentage, since this processor does not receive multi-threaded acceleration at standard frequencies due to the lack of Hyper-Threading.

Let's move on to the results of the DivX codec, which is well optimized for multithreading, as well as the Xvid codec, which is not so well optimized.

As you might expect, the Xvid codec does not provide an advantage (in fact, it even loses) due to the active Hyper-Threading technology on the Core i7-860 compared to the Intel i5-750. However, Turbo Boost speeds up the execution of the task on both CPUs.

Interestingly, DivX doesn't benefit much from Hyper-Threading either, suggesting a four-thread limit. In our case, the Core i7-860 is only slightly faster. And both processors get significant boosts from overclocking - enough to say that manual overclocking is the best way to speed up performance in multi-threaded applications, and you won't get as much of a boost from Turbo Boost.

HandBrake is a new program in our test package. This is a free utility that can benefit from multithreading support. In our test, we converted the first .vob file of the movie "The Last Samurai" to .mp4 format.

Since the utility supports multithreading, the Turbo Boost function has little effect. But, again, it is interesting to see that Hyper-Threading does not have the same serious effect as, for example, we saw in the SiSoftware Sandra or 3DMark Vantage packages. The real way to improve performance is through manual overclocking - we get significant performance improvements by boosting our test CPUs to 4GHz.

Our Adobe Photoshop CS4 test consists of several multi-threaded filters applied to a .TIF image. Therefore, it is not surprising that Turbo Boost technology has minimal effect. Hyper-Threading also does not have a very noticeable effect.

But what really helps increase the performance of Photoshop CS4 is the clock speed. The Core i7-860 at 2.8 GHz performs slightly better than the Core i5-750 at 2.66 GHz, and Turbo Boost gives both processors 133 MHz. At 4 GHz, both processors demonstrate comparable results, which are much higher than those without overclocking.

We were puzzled by the behavior of AVG 9 antivirus, which no longer scales as well after upgrading from AVG 8.5. However, launching the task manager during the test clarifies the situation. When the scanner is running, it consumes, at best, 10% of the processor resources. We tested the antivirus on dual-processor chips and on Atom platforms - performance really slows down if you reduce the number of processing cores and lower the clock speed. However, the Core i5-750 and Core i7-860 perform at very similar levels, so we can say that their performance in AVG 9 is identical.

3ds Max 2010 benefits from both Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost technologies. Overclocking remains the best way to get maximum performance in this program. The Core i5-750 shows an advantage at 4GHz due to its 200MHz base BCLK clock, which is 10MHz higher than the i7-860's 190MHz at 4GHz.

This archiver is well optimized for multithreading (which cannot be said about Hyper-Threading support). WinRAR gives a minimal speed increase from Turbo Boost technology, since all four cores are active. Turning off Turbo Boost completely reduces the frequency of each CPU by 133 MHz under full load, so this technology still helps a little.

However, when both processors operate at 4 GHz, the performance is comparable (and significantly faster than at standard frequencies).

As you can see, the compression speed (in KB/s) scales proportionally not only to the clock speed, but also to the number of available cores. In fact, the 4GHz Core i5-750 can't even keep up with the 2.8GHz Core i7-860 with Turbo Boost disabled.

Since this archiver is well optimized for multithreading, Turbo Boost has little effect. Hyper-Threading adds a bit of performance, and overclocking again makes a big difference.

3D games

Crysis at all three tested resolutions shows negligible gains from Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, or overclocking.

This game recently appeared in our test package. Unlike Crysis, which loads primarily the graphics subsystem, Left 4 Dead 2 scales more efficiently with processor performance (assuming you have a graphics card as powerful as our Radeon HD 5850, of course).

We see that the automatic 133 MHz boost due to Turbo Boost technology helps a little at low resolutions, but Hyper-Threading has no effect at all. Overclocking gives a noticeable increase in resolutions of 1680x1050 and 1920x1200. However, all these gains are no longer observed; it is worth turning on anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. As with Crysis, performance starts to level out whether your system is running a 2.66GHz Core i5-750 or a 4GHz Core i7-860.

We will not conduct a full set of gaming tests, since there is no point. In our third and final Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 gaming test, we see that CPU performance doesn't always match in-game performance. This popular game isn't the best choice for testing, but a 60-second run of Act II: The Gulag shows us that Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, and even overclocking to 4GHz don't improve frame rates.

Now comes an interesting moment too. If it were possible to configure all processors to run up to 4 GHz without changing all other variables, then our recommendations based on performance tests would already be obvious. Alas, this is not true.

The good news is that you can increase the voltage on each processor, increase their frequency to 4 GHz, and then get very modest power consumption in idle mode. Enhanced SpeedStep technology was implemented properly on the Intel DP55KG motherboard even when the base BCLK clock was set to 200 or 190 MHz, meaning both of our test processors dropped their clock speeds under no load. Of course, we see a slight increase in power consumption in both cases, but it is two or three watts, which can be ignored.

The PCMark Vantage run graph on an Intel Core i5-750 shows a completely different picture when the processor is running under load. You'll find three lines on the graph: the green one represents our run of the i5-750 with Turbo Boost completely disabled, the red one represents the power consumption with Turbo Boost active, and the blue one represents the platform power consumption when overclocking the processor to 4 GHz using the 200 MHz BCLK base frequency and voltage 1.45 V.

It is quite clear that turning on Turbo Boost leads to increased power consumption. But it is much lower than the overclocking and voltage increase required to keep our 2.66 GHz processor stable at 4 GHz.

Average power consumption without Turbo Boost was 115 W for the entire run. After enabling Turbo Boost, average power consumption increased to 120 W. After overclocking to 4 GHz, this increased to 156 W, and we still finished the test just 28 seconds faster.

Conclusion

In the end, our research into the benefits of Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, and good old-fashioned overclocking gave us something to think about.

The first thing we learned is that Turbo Boost is most effective at improving the performance of applications that are poorly optimized for multi-threading. Today there are fewer and fewer such applications, but we still have a couple of programs that get a serious performance boost after turning on Turbo Boost. We also noticed a consistent small increase after enabling Turbo Boost, even in multi-threaded applications, which is associated with one step of acceleration when using four cores. Overall, the intelligent overclocking built into processors based on the Nehalem design gives Intel a competitive advantage over AMD and its own Core 2 line in applications such as iTunes, WinZip and Lame. Turbo Boost no longer impacts the performance of MainConcept, HandBrake, WinRAR and 7zip as much - efficiently written applications that can fully load quad-core processors due to their parallelism.

Hyper-Threading is even less useful, but, again, we can give a couple of examples where this technology shows itself well in real conditions. Video transcoding applications, for example, can use Hyper-Threading and can reduce task completion time. However, there are all reasons why we would recommend the Core i5-750. This processor costs almost $100 less than the Core i7-860, but still delivers virtually the same level of performance with minimal hit-off in properly optimized programs. Before us is, in a way, a modern version of the famous Celeron 300A, which worked reliably at 450 MHz.

The biggest victory still came from manual overclocking. Of course, we appreciate the new Turbo Boost feature in Core i5 and Core i7 processors, but it's important to emphasize that the benefit of this technology is most obvious in single-threaded applications (and this benefit gradually fades away as developers begin to fully least use modern multi-core architectures). If the load on the processors is full, then the advantage from Turbo Boost is no longer so significant. Meanwhile, the gain that overclocking gives manifests itself constantly, regardless of whether you launch iTunes or HandBrake. It's a great time to be an overclocking enthusiast, with affordable 45nm processors easily overclocking to 4GHz, and recently released 32nm processors reaching 4.5GHz and beyond.

Of course, there are some subtleties associated with changing the standard parameters. First, risk must be considered. Running a processor at 4 GHz with a voltage of 1.45 V is not so dangerous (even with air cooling), but if the processor burns out, you will not be able to replace it under warranty. Moreover, power consumption under load increases significantly if you increase the clock speed and voltage. Luckily, the motherboard we were using correctly reduced power consumption and clock speed when idle.

Finally, we should remind our readers that it doesn't make much sense for a gamer to invest in an expensive processor. Whether it's a $200 Core i5-750 or a $300 Core i7-860, you'll get the same frame rates at most resolutions unless you invest in a more expensive graphics card configuration.

Technology Intel Turbo Boost allows you to automatically increase the processor clock speed above the rated speed, as long as the power, temperature, and current limits of the TDP specification are not exceeded. This results in increased performance for single-threaded and multi-threaded applications.

What is the difference between the original implementation of Intel® Turbo Boost Technology and Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0?
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 improves energy efficiency on a single chip integrated into the processor.

Which processors support INTEL® TURBO BOOST technology?
Intel® Core™ i7 Mobile Processor and Desktop Processors
Intel® Core™ i7 extreme edition processor Desktop
Intel® Core™ i7 Extreme Edition Mobile Processor
Intel® Core™ i5 Mobile Processor and Desktop Processors

What factors affect the performance of Intel® Turbo Boost Technology?
While the availability of Intel® Turbo Boost Technology is independent of the number of active cores, its performance is dependent on the performance limits of one or more cores. System operating time in Turbo Boost mode varies depending on workload, operating conditions, and platform design.

How is Intel® Turbo Boost Technology enabled and disabled?
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology is usually enabled by default in one of the BIOS menus, where you can turn it on or off. Apart from using the BIOS menu, there is no way for the user to change the operating mode of Intel Turbo Boost Technology. When this feature is enabled, Intel® Turbo Boost Technology operates automatically under operating system management.

What is Dynamic Frequency Control and how does it work?
Dynamic Frequency is very similar to Intel® Turbo Boost Technology. It dynamically increases the performance of the graphics adapter (video card) when running applications with complex graphics.

How do I enable Dynamic Frequency?
On most systems, Dynamic Frequency is automatically enabled, so no user intervention is required.

How does Dynamic Frequency affect Intel® Turbo Boost Technology?
The power sharing algorithm implemented in Dynamic Frequency allows this function to work in conjunction with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, providing increased performance of the graphics adapter (video card) when working with resource-intensive applications where power and temperature reserves exist.

Is the frequency boost the same for all active cores in the processor?
Yes.

Can I set the maximum clock speed for Intel® Turbo Boost Technology?
There is no way to set the maximum frequency. When Turbo Boost is enabled, the processor automatically determines the maximum frequency at which it can operate based on operating conditions.

How can I tell if Intel® Turbo Boost Technology is working?
Intel® Turbo Boost Monitor is a program that shows Intel Turbo Boost technology in action. If your processor does not support Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, the tool will not work.

How do I know if my motherboard supports Intel® Turbo Boost Technology?
First, check your processor to make sure it supports Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, as this is a processor technology. Please note that Intel® Turbo Boost Technology is typically enabled by default by desktop PC vendors. It is usually enabled and disabled using the BIOS switch on the motherboard. You should refer to the motherboard documentation or the vendor's website to see if this technology is enabled on the motherboard.

How important is the assembly and design of a computer (system unit) in terms of Intel® Turbo Boost Technology?
To get maximum efficiency from Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, the design of the future computer system (system unit components) must be approached with special care.

Want to learn about other innovations from Intel? Then let's move on to !

That's all! Thank you for your attention and see you again on the pages of the site site

When communicating with users, I began to notice that many do not understand at all what Turbo Boost is, what the purpose of turbo acceleration of processors is, and what kind of gain can be obtained from it. Also, many people confuse turbo acceleration with hypertrading, although these are completely different technologies. Let me remind you that Turbo Boost technology was introduced with the release of the first generation of i3, i5, i7 processors; Intel and the Xeon processor line were not ignored. Hypertrading technology began to be implemented on Intel Xeon processors in November 2002, in i3-i5-i7 with the release of the first generation of this line.

Turbo Boost Intel processors

Turbo Boost- literal translation of turbo boost (turbo overclocking, turbo acceleration) - Intel technology for automatically increasing the processor clock frequency above the nominal, if the power, temperature and current limits in the design power (TDP) are not exceeded. This results in increased performance for single-threaded and multi-threaded applications. In fact, this is a technology for “self-overclocking” the processor.

And it becomes completely incomprehensible to me when beginners, and sometimes even experienced processor overclockers, disable this function in order to ultimately increase the processor clock frequency, which will not give a significant increase. The availability of Turbo Boost technology is independent of the number of active cores, but is dependent on the presence of one or more cores operating below their rated power. System Turbo Boost operating time varies depending on workload, operating conditions, and platform design.

Intel® Turbo Boost Technology is usually enabled by default in one of the BIOS menus. As we know, overclocking a processor by increasing the processor clock frequency is possible only on motherboards with a “Z” chipset, but not all users know that it is possible to speed up performance on chipsets with the index “B” and others. In this case, of course, we do not have full control over the values, but increasing the processor multiplier is better than raising the lower threshold Turbo BoostWe are quite capable, which gives a noticeable increase in the speed and responsiveness of the operating system itself, which is sometimes very useful. Since the upper value does not change, you should not expect an increase in heavy renderings, renderings, games, the time of these calculations will remain at the same level. I will give an example on my GA-B75-D3H motherboard and i5 3570 processor, since the appearance and location of some BIOS tabs may differ depending on the model and manufacturer.

To increase the multiplier parameter, you need to go to the BIOS during boot by pressing the “DEL” button.

Go to Advanced Frequency Settings

And change the multiplier parameter to the maximum; this parameter is individual for each processor model. Changing the multiplier is done using the “Page UP” and “Page Down” keys. For example, on my i5 3470 with operating frequencies of 3.4 - 3.8 GHz, the maximum permissible multiplier is 3.60, and from personal experience, increasing the frequency from 3.40 to 3.60 makes the OS noticeably more responsive and faster. Programs launch faster, and moments of thoughtfulness of the system also disappear, but I repeat once again that this will have almost no effect on rendering or FPS in games, since the maximum frequency and multiplier remain at the same level, in my case it is 3.80 GHz and 36.

To increase the impact on performance, you can go to “Advanced CPU core settings” and change the number of cores to the maximum. In my case it is 4 cores. This parameter disables the power saving mode and all cores will always be used for work; in the “Auto” mode, the number and load on the cores is selected automatically and for some tasks only 1 or 2 cores can be used and only at maximum loads the thread can be distributed to all cores.

I would like to note that this method of increasing performance is absolutely safe for the processor and other components of your PC, which I consider the most important fact.

Hypertrading of Intel processors

Hyper-threading- hyperthreading, official name - hyper-threading technology, HTT or HT- technology developed by the company Intel for processors based on NetBurst microarchitecture. HTT implements the idea of ​​"simultaneous multithreading" (eng. simultaneous multithreading, SMT). HTT is a development of superthreading technology. super-threading), which appeared in processors Intel Xeon in February 2002 and November 2002 added to processors Pentium 4. Once HTT is enabled, one physical processor (one physical core) is recognized by the operating system as two separate processors (two logical cores). For certain workloads, using HTT can increase processor performance. The essence of the technology: transfer of “useful work” to inactive actuators.

HTT is not implemented in series processors Core 2(“Core 2 Duo”, “Core 2 Quad”).

In processors Core i3, Core i7 and some Core i5 a technology similar in its principles was implemented, which retained the name hyper-threading. When the technology is enabled, each physical processor core is defined by the operating system as two logical cores.

It is worth noting that not all models of Intel i3, i5, i7 and Xeon processors are equipped with this multi-threading technology; before purchasing, read the specifications carefully so that this does not come as a surprise to you.

Processor supporting technology hyper-threading:

1. can store the state of two threads at once;
2. contains one set of registers and one interrupt controller (APIC) for each logical processor.

For the operating system, this looks like having two logical processors. Each logical processor has its own set of registers and an interrupt controller (APIC). The remaining elements of the physical processor are common to all logical processors.

Let's look at an example. The physical processor executes the instruction stream of the first logical processor. The command stream is suspended for one of the following reasons:

• a miss occurred when accessing the processor cache;
• an incorrect branch prediction was made;
• the result of the previous instruction is expected.

The physical processor will not remain idle, but will transfer control to the command stream of the second logical processor. Thus, while one logical processor is waiting, for example, for data from memory, the computing resources of the physical processor will be used by the second logical processor.

Unfortunately, Hypertrading does not provide gains when performing all tasks. So in some games, disabling this function will not affect FPS in any way. When performing heavy calculations, such as 3D rendering, video editing, video conversion and the like, the increase will be very significant. This is why Mac PRO computers are equipped with Intel Xeon processors with support for hypertrading technology, since this is the best option for maximum performance. But in games, these processors show far from such brilliant results, but as you know, the Mac PRO is the original workhorse and it is not particularly designed for toys; for games you can use an iMac or MacBook.

I hope I was able to convey to you something useful and now you will not confuse these technologies. Good luck!