How to have turbo boost always on, on i5 2500k

Turn turbo off, turn speedstep etc off, and overclock it to 3.6GHz
There you go.
Moto

SpeedStep lowers the clockspeed of the CPU when nothing is stressing it. If you want the CPU to always run at stock speed (3.3GHz), then you need to disable it.

Turbo Boost is a different matter. You cannot force the CPU to run at 3.7GHz all the time. The clockspeed is based on two things:

1. Current CPU temperature. Above a certain temp, then no TB.
2. The number of cores being used.
2a. With only one core stressed, the CPU should be able to achieve the maximum 3.7GHz (assuming the temp is not too high).
2b. With two core the CPU will likely run at 3.6GHz.
2c. With 3 or 4 cores under stress the CPU will likely run at 3.5GHz.

Those clockspeeds are estimates because the CPUs uses a formula to determine the actual clockspeeds.

Ah thanks guys, so the best bet would be to disable it and run at 3.3ghz and later overclock it. I thought there was a way to force the turbo to stay at 3.7ghz for all 4 cores. Thanks for clearing it up.

Actually I disabled it but still cpuz shows 1.6ghz is there a special option to disable this speedstep ? I disabled the turbo boost , but its still not showing 3.3ghz.

forcing turbo would just mean you OC it to the max turbo speed and disable all the power safe functions like speedstep.

Why not just change the windows power plan to High Performance. That should kick up to full speed all the time(or at least does on my system).

Just know that your temperatures and power consumption will jump as well(But SB is very good when it comes to staying cool at low loads. mine does not even drop voltage at idle and runs cool enough for me).

Well il give that a try, I thought enabling or disabling the turbo mode would make it 3.3ghz but thats not working so il try the windows performance option. Where do I find speedstep ? Is thats what its actually called in bios ?

Yes, speedstep is in bios somewhere,
If you stop thinking in terms of 'turbo' though it may help,
Basically you want your chip to run at 3.7GHz all the time,
So disable turbo (as that will attemp further boosting and kill things),
Disable speedstep (as that will throttle the chip to lower speed when not needed)
And Overclock to 3.7, theres a SB Oc guide over in overclocking to help you,
Then your chip will be at 3.7GHz all the time like you want
Moto

^ thanks man, Il check it out and for now I just want it at 3.3ghz stock to see how it performs.But yes thats what I was wondering about. For now I gotta find where that speedstep is in my bios.

So iv been doing some reading and I think its the c1e and EIST that I have to disable in bios. When I get home il give it a try.

Cool, I'm not overly familiar with Intel's bios naming but those two do ring a bell :-)
GLand feedback how it goes
Moto

EIST = Speedstep(Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® Technology)  
c1e = Low voltage at idle

Well beats the hell out of me, I disabled the intel turbo, c1e, EIST and changed in windows to high performance and cpuz still shows 1.6ghz and x16 multiplier ugh. Anything else I might be missing ?

I would want that to be on, it saves power when I am not doing anything and when I do anything cpu intensive it bumps to 4.6ghz.

You may want to try changing the setting for.

Real-Time Ratio Changes In OS. It seems to be the only other option in your bios.

Intel(R) Turbo Boost Tech is off?
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) is off?
CPU EIST Function is off?

I am with amuffin on the fact that it DOES save power. And the cpu will clock up as soon as it is needed.

What is the main reason you want this idle clock speed off?

I know this is for something else(the link below), but it should force your cpu to run at full speed all the time from the OS. I have tested and it does work at the cost of more heat and power consumption.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/292915-30-high-pitche...

I feel like when Im logging into the game or any other heavy program there's a tiny lag because the cpu has to bump up the speed. I also want to figure it out as im planning on overclocking sometime soon so Id like to know how to disable it so once I overclock it wont bump me up past the speed I set it to.

I tried the real time ratio changes in Os and still nothing. Cpuz shows the cpu at x16 and then it will jump to x33.

The CPU boosts back up to its normal speed pretty much instantly, and long before you actually get into the game. Basically as soon as anything starts asking it to perform work, it's back up to its normal speed.

The lag you get when logging into games is related to the very large workload involved in getting the game set up initially. Not all of the loading happens with the load screen up. Turning of speedstep won't make this any smoother, it's just going to cost you more in electricity.

Try a BIOS update or manually change the CPU settings yourself. Some boards don't read the CPUs right, we had a bunch of Gigabyte G31 boards that would make 3.00Ghz CPUs run at 1.6Ghz etc. Try a new BIOS and then let it load defaults or try adjusting the settings yourself to fix it.

I am just trying to figure out why you want to run at 3.7GHz when you are doing nothing? Speedstep is designed to save you money by cutting the power being used down. If it is only when the computer is in an idle state that it will cut the speed down to this level and before it goes to sleep. If you start to do something it will clock right back up.


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

Well I just wanted to know what setting to change in order to disable it, just for future references. Anyway I figured it out it seems like c3/c6 has to be disabled in order for it to work max at 3.3ghz. I turned everything back on as the temperature difference is pretty big, so no point having it being hot when Im not doing anything.

So now i got

turbo boost - on
c1e - on
c3/c6 - on
eist - on

Thanks for the help guys.

I have an i7 2600K and whilst I do love the Speedstep feature, I am also curious as to how much money I will actually save. Is it a significant amount? Has Toms or any other site done a test on this? My dad is always moaning about the electric bill and generally blames it on my PC lol

Well if it helps any, my media center idles at 39-43 with a 5770 and about 31-39 with a 4350. So the idle power consumption of modern cpu's is very good.

My 2600K(4.4) + 5870 + 2 drives and 2 SSD's ect idles at about 90watts.

Every watt adds up. Sleep and Hibernate are great features to save power.

I will do some 2600K tests later

nice speaking of idle I just redid my thermal paste on my cpu. The first time I used some shitty radio shack paste cuz thats all I had left and this time I used tg-2 and theres no difference in the temps. My i5 2500k idles in the mid 30s and one core is in the high 30s hitting 40c. Thought I'd see a difference. Maybe in the load temps it'l be lower.

The difference between different brands of paste is surprisingly small. You'll see companies make all kinds of claims about how advanced their compounds are, but in the end there's little to no benefit (aside from nonconductivity in some pastes). Really low quality pastes can be a problem, but the difference between a tube of Arctic Silver and any other high end paste is around 1 degree.

Far more important than which paste you use is how you apply it. If you use too much, or not enough, your temperatures will be much higher than had you applied it properly.

grab a http://www.reuk.co.uk/Kill-a-Watt.htm
and math link,
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html
then do a little math and tell Dad exactly how many units your Pc uses, he can get the unit price off the latest bill and figure how Evil your Pc isn't  
<According to Hwm, my package is 17w at idle and drinks 110w fullbore
Moto

hm well i actually ended up disabling the turbo and all the other stuff as with it my mobo made a tiny whining noise and it was annoying. Now with it disabled its all quiet  

Hmm, I'd investigate the whining....
Psu coil whine?
Capacitors bulging?
Or the graphics card winding up?
I would look to see if you can narrow down whats making the noise if you can, it may just save you tears and money
Moto

Try with all the normal settings but without C1E.

That was the fix for some X58 gigabyte boards. It was coil whine from he rapid voltage swings that modern cpus request to stay both power efficient and have power as soon as it is needed,

That said, coil buzz does not actually mean a component will fail.

I have seen many video cards with this problem and it has never effected performance or longevity of the card it self.

Some users are lucky and can not even hear coil whine and some coils vibrate at a frequency humans can not hear(all of these coils vibrate, it just a matter of if you hear it). It is almost luck of the draw.

ahh, Il give that a shot and see how it goes.