Any CPU speed monitor other than CPU-Z?

[Scotty99]

I recently updated CPU-Z and it is incorrectly reporting my clock speeds from version to version. I am looking for another program like this to verify speedstep is working correctly for me, since i cannot trust CPU-Z at this time.

Would really appreciate any replies, this is very annoying using an old version of CPU-Z and i need to figure out if the new version is in fact bugged, or if my system is not dropping into speedstep at idle.

 

[stickmansam]

coretemp - monitors temps and voltages (mb input side, cpuz shows interl cpu voltages)as well

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

speccy - shows temps and voltages as well as individual core speeds

http://www.piriform.com/speccy/builds

 

[Rockdpm]

core temp is a good one. Also System monitor.. but you need core temp for that

 

[Scotty99]

This is very odd, speccy is reporting my cores at 4.2 (my overclock) at idle as well, here is the weird part.

1. With version 1.60 of CPU-Z it is acting properly. At desktop it reads as 1.6 speedstep but as soon as i start prime 95 it goes right up to 4.2. When i stop prime 95 it goes right back to 1.6 as expected.

2. The new version of CPU-Z says my CPU is running at 4.2 constantly, with zero changes occuring when i open prime 95. (volts go up of course, but speeds stay the same).

Is it possible an older version of CPU-Z is reading things correctly over 2 newer versions of different softwares?

If anyone has any other programs i can try that would be great.

 

[Scotty99]

Just to be clear temps are irrelevant for me at this point, never goes above 57c during full load in prime, just need another program to test clock speeds.

Thanks.

 

[Scotty99]

Found a lucky forum post suggesting the intel processor identification tool, and as it turns out my system is NOT going into speedstep at all.

Know whats even CRAZIER, if i set my bios to stock settings speedstep STILL does not work. Ugh, last time im buying a biostar board.

 

[stickmansam]

hmm my speccy is working fine, I would say something with your bios/board
try updating it to the latest one

 

[Scotty99]

Ya its fully updated, "recommended" bios settings and i open up intel proc ID tool and it still says 4.2ghz.

Im staring at my bios right now and it says C1E and speedstep are enabled, wtf is going on lol.

 

[Scotty99]

Soooo i just figured it out apparently, i had changed the power management to "high performance" a while back because of a suggestion from a moderator in the WoW forums (there is apparently a bug with WoW and balanced setting).

I knew it did this on laptops, had no idea this affected desktops that are plugged in 100% of the time.

Sigh.

 

[stickmansam]

Oh yeah it does that
I had issues with that myself a while back

 

[unclewebb]

If you are interested in finding out what your CPU is really doing then check out RealTemp.

RealTemp T|I Edition
http://www.overclock.net/t/1330144/realtemp-t-i-edition

CPU-Z is a MHz validation tool so it favors consistency when a CPU is lightly loaded over accuracy. Starting with CPU-Z 1.62, it started reporting lightly loaded CPUs a little differently compared to previous versions. Nice to see that someone noticed.

Most people don't understand EIST because many monitoring utilities have been trying to be just like CPU-Z.

The new version of RealTemp includes a new C States window so you can see exactly what your CPU is doing. It also reports exactly what the CPU multiplier is doing.

If you are interested in saving power with a modern Intel Sandy or Ivy Bridge CPU, I would recommend using the High Performance profile and then enable C3/C6. There is no need to worry that your CPU voltage or multiplier are too high because if C6 is enabled, your CPU cores are mostly asleep anyhow and are getting next to zero voltage. The voltage that CPU-Z reports when a CPU core is idle and using the C sleep states becomes meaningless.

There are a lot of myths about CPU power consumption on the internet. If you own a Sandy or Ivy Bridge CPU, buy a Kill-a-Watt meter and do some testing. Some power profiles can kill performance without saving you anything.

Power Optimization – a Reality Check
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~krioukov/realityCheck.pdf