Processor speed set to 4.0GHz but when stress tested it only goes to 3.8Ghz

stevenliu201

Reputable
Sep 19, 2014
12
0
4,510
I recently bought a intel i7 4790 and I went to the bios and set the speed to 4.0GHz. I opened Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and I stress tested it and it capped at 3.8GHz, I have tried to use other stress test apps like Heavyload and it still caps at 3.8GHz.
When i'm playing some CPU intensive games it goes up to 3.9GHz. How can I fix this?
 
Solution
Sounds like it's operating normally. It's a locked core cpu with a max turbo of up to 4.0ghz. The way turbo works, "up to" 4ghz means if 1 core is maxed it will go up to 4ghz. 2 cores maxed and it will likely drop to 3.9ghz and with 3-4 cores maxed will only turbo to 3.8ghz. Under a stress test, all four cores are maxed so it reaches 3.8ghz, when gaming you may only be maxing 2 of the 4 cores so it's able to move to 3.9ghz. The extra 100-200mhz won't make any real difference so I wouldn't worry about it. If looking to push cores faster than they are out of the box, look into z series motherboards and k series unlocked cpu's.
Sounds like it's operating normally. It's a locked core cpu with a max turbo of up to 4.0ghz. The way turbo works, "up to" 4ghz means if 1 core is maxed it will go up to 4ghz. 2 cores maxed and it will likely drop to 3.9ghz and with 3-4 cores maxed will only turbo to 3.8ghz. Under a stress test, all four cores are maxed so it reaches 3.8ghz, when gaming you may only be maxing 2 of the 4 cores so it's able to move to 3.9ghz. The extra 100-200mhz won't make any real difference so I wouldn't worry about it. If looking to push cores faster than they are out of the box, look into z series motherboards and k series unlocked cpu's.
 
Solution

stevenliu201

Reputable
Sep 19, 2014
12
0
4,510

I have a Z motherboard but not a unlocked cpu, can i still overclock?
 
Like DubbleClick said, no. Two things are needed for overclocking, a cpu with an unlocked multiplier from the factory (k series or x series cpu's, such as 4690"K" or 4790"K") and a motherboard like a z series which has additional settings/options to allow you to take advantage of an unlocked cpu. A non k such as the 4790 (no k after it) is locked from the factory. About the only thing you could do would be to increase the base clock "bclk" but that speeds everything up not just the cpu and can quickly make things unstable. The bclk being 100mhz (x the multiplier of x40 to get 4ghz), you might get the bclk to 103 or 104 but may start to crash at that point. The tiny gains from it aren't worth the effort or system instability.