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36501
How to enable Turbo Boost
Hi.
I have a 7 year old Studio XPS 8000 running on an i7 860 at 2.80 GHz. I have been informed that this CPU has a feature called Turbo Boost which will increase the clock speed to 3.46 GHz when needed. I would like to see the performance benefit when running Flight Simulator. I have checked using CPU-Z, and the clock speed remains at 2.80 GHz when running Flight Simulator. According to my online investigations Turbo Boost is enabled through the BIOS. I have gone into my BIOS, and there is no reference to it at all. My BIOS is Dell Inc. A01 dated 11/08/2009. I am aware that there is a BIOS update available (A03 dated 03/11/2011), but the Dell drivers page states that to use it I need to "download the file and copy it to a DOS-bootable USB flash drive, then boot the system to the USB flash drive and run the program". I have no idea what a DOS-bootable USB flash drive is. Is this imperative, or is it safe for me to run the BIOS update file from my desktop, as various Youtube videos suggest? And of course the important question is whether this BIOS update will give me an option to enable Turbo Boost? Or is there another reason why this feature is not available? In case it is important, my OS is Windows 7 Home 64 bit.
Thanks for your help.
Adrian
speedstep
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
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47K Posts
1
October 19th, 2016 05:00
Turbo boost is speed fake marketing. Its not something that can be SET to be ON all the time and it doesn't apply to all the cores. It can boost the speed of 1 core if the others are idle and only in small bursts. The CPU decides when this happens. The increased clock rate is limited by the processor's power, current and thermal limits, as well as the number of cores currently in use and the maximum frequency of the active cores. (Translation You never get all the cores running at top speed AND you never get top speed maxed the entire time.) Don't be fooled by the Mhz myth.
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
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43.5K Posts
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October 13th, 2016 11:00
Your CPU may not support Turbo Boost. Even if it does, if Dell didn't enable TB in BIOS, there's nothing you can do.
There's been only one BIOS update, from A01 to A03, for this system. And the only thing reported for A03 is: Fix intermittent show error message Alert at checkpoint D0 issue.
So if you don't get this error message, there's no point updating to A03.
You can enable Hyper-Treading in BIOS A01, if not already enabled. But HT may only give you a small improvement, assuming the software you run is coded to use HT.
westbros
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October 21st, 2016 04:00
Thanks for the replies so far. I am aware that Turbo Boost is engaged only as needed and boosts the speed of just 1 core. But any speed boost is welcome so that I can avoid having to do a full system upgrade.
An i7 CPU has Turbo Boost capability by definition, so I don't understand why RoHe suggests that it may not support the function. Why would Dell disable the function in the BIOS? Is there absolutely no way of enabling it? It would be good to have a response from a Dell techie here.
What about SpeedStep? I discovered that this was disabled, so I have switched it on in the BIOS. Using the Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor I have discovered that I now get a small speed boost to 2.93 GHz, but no more. Should I be getting more? Does the fact that I am getting a small boost with SpeedStep suggest that Turbo Boost should be possible?
Thanks again.
Adrian