e6420 running at 1600mhz by default. Wtf?

[egel]

I just realised something. I ran cpu-z the other day, and found my core2duo e6420 is running by default at 1600mhz. I'm not overly familiar with more advanced areas of BIOS or OC'ing, so I have to ask here. Any ideas why/ how to change this.
My motherboard is a GA-P965-DS3 (gigabyte, obviously), RAM is G.Skill DDR2 800, cl 5-5-5-15, 400mhz.
Any other system stats that might matter, please ask and I'll be happy to oblige.
Cheers.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Its part of the energy saving feature of the Core 2 series.

For instance: I have a Q6600 that has a multiplier range of 6-9. My default clock speed is 2.4GHz or 9x266. I have it OC'ed to 2.7GHz or 9x300MHz.

When my CPU is idle though it runs at 1.8GHz or 6x300. So yours is most likely just in an idle state. Run a CPU intense program and the run CPU-Z at the same time and it should clock to the higher default speed. I would post picks but I hate using a file hosting sever.

As for changing it, I don't know how your BIOs is setp up but there might be a thing in it to change that feature or maybe not. Although you really don't need it trust me. You won't even notice when it goes into the lower clock or the higher clock.

 

[egel]

Ah yes you are correct. While loading Supreme Commander it jumped to 2.13GHz then back down. So you don't reckon it will make much difference forcing it to run faster all the time?

Also, on Vista, and yes, I know this is rather n00bish, how do you get task manager to show both cores?

 

[Grimmy]

:lol: . o O (how speed step still tricks most people still amazing)

When you bring taskmanager, I still use XP, hopefully it should be the same, maybe not, click on the performance tab, then click view, then on CPU history. So you should have 1 graph for all, or 1 graph per CPU.

But.. MS has the tendency to change things.

 

[MrCommunistGen]

:lol: . o O (how speed step still tricks most people still amazing)

Kinda like when Hyper Threading came out and people thought they had 2 processors... something like: my new Sony has 2x 3.0GHz P4s in it...

-mcg

 

[Grimmy]

Kinda like when Hyper Threading came out and people thought they had 2 processors... something like: my new Sony has 2x 3.0GHz P4s in it...

-mcg

Ya.. I'm actually using my old P4 3ghz -HT on FC5 Linux. Shows up as 2 CPU's. :lol:

 

[egel]

Thanks Grimmy, still the same (or rather close enough) which is rather surprising knowing MS... lol. Cheers.

 

[jimmysmitty]

No vista is the same Grimmy. I have a Q6600 and it shows all 4 cores in the Performance tab so his should show both.

I don't think making it run at its top speed will change much since once you load a game or CPU intensive program it instantly ramps up and you can't tell. For instance I play a online MMO called 2Moons and once I open it it jumps to 2.7GHz and it loads about 3x faster than my old P4EE 3.4GHz. It shows a little % of loading and it goes from 0 to 100% in like 3 seconds.

I loved HT. It was probably one of the most inovative designs of the P4 architecture as it would basically allow 2 threads to run at the same time. Not as fast a a dual core but still pretty impressive.

And BTW Nehalem will inclued a new version of HT. SO if you have one of the higher end 8 cor CPUs you will show 16 cores. It is supposed to be a much faster version of HT. I would love to have that.