Is it possible to enable Turbo Boost on low-end pentium/celeron Gxxxx

[gnaij]

Hi, everyone

I found something intersting when accessing BIOS info with some linux command vpddecode. Below is part of the output.

Handle 0x000E, DMI type 4, 42 bytes
Processor Information
Socket Designation: CPUSocket
Type: Central Processor
Family: Pentium
Manufacturer: Intel(R) Corporation
ID: A9 06 03 00 FF FB EB BF
Signature: Type 0, Family 6, Model 58, Stepping 9
Flags:
FPU (Floating-point unit on-chip)
VME (Virtual mode extension)
DE (Debugging extension)
PSE (Page size extension)
TSC (Time stamp counter)
MSR (Model specific registers)
PAE (Physical address extension)
MCE (Machine check exception)
CX8 (CMPXCHG8 instruction supported)
APIC (On-chip APIC hardware supported)
SEP (Fast system call)
MTRR (Memory type range registers)
PGE (Page global enable)
MCA (Machine check architecture)
CMOV (Conditional move instruction supported)
PAT (Page attribute table)
PSE-36 (36-bit page size extension)
CLFSH (CLFLUSH instruction supported)
DS (Debug store)
ACPI (ACPI supported)
MMX (MMX technology supported)
FXSR (FXSAVE and FXSTOR instructions supported)
SSE (Streaming SIMD extensions)
SSE2 (Streaming SIMD extensions 2)
SS (Self-snoop)
HTT (Multi-threading)
TM (Thermal monitor supported)
PBE (Pending break enabled)
Version: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G2020 @ 2.90GHz
Voltage: 2.9 V
External Clock: 100 MHz
Max Speed: 3800 MHz
Current Speed: 2900 MHz
Status: Populated, Enabled
Upgrade: Socket BGA1155
L1 Cache Handle: 0x000B
L2 Cache Handle: 0x000A
L3 Cache Handle: 0x000C
Serial Number: Not Specified
Asset Tag: Fill By OEM
Part Number: Fill By OEM
Core Count: 2
Core Enabled: 2
Thread Count: 2
Characteristics:
64-bit capable

Noticed that there is a line:

Max Speed: 3800 MHz

Does this mean there is possibility to enable the unavailable feature and boost the CPU upto 3800MHz? Maybe some pin/resistor tweek?

 

[elemein]

Your CPU doesnt exactly have "pins" or "resistors." Intel has moved to LGA a long time ago, done away with the traditional pins.

Your CPU came from a batch of CPUs that had a max speed of 3800 MHz. The i5 batch. Yep, your Pentium was meant to be an i5; though defects degraded it.

Those defects made the Intel Engineers deem it unusable for the i5 line, and the i3 line. So it became a Pentium.

They also disabled Turboboost at a hardware level. In short: No, you cannot unlock it. Unfortunately.