XPS 8000 - Enable C-State and Speed Step or NOT? In the BIOS

Can anyone shed some light if I should ENABLE BIOS settings of the C-State and Speed Step on the XPS 8000.  Apparently, some threads have discovered that by default, these Intel feature should be enabled in the BIOS as per Dell Support.  I received my XPS 8000 with those settings disabled.  Can anyone tell me what is the correct system default for those BIOS settings?

I'm guessing you already read this topic in this forum on the the bios settings for  C-State and Speed Step  :

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19301454.aspx

The posters on this topic seemed to have answered your question. From what it reads, the correct "Default" settings for C-State and Speed Step should be "Enabled" but when the 8000's ship they are mistakenly "Disabled". This is how mine were also set, "Disabled". So all you need to do is change both to "Enabled". After I upgraded my bios I "Enabled" both my settings.

Seems like the only question still unanswered is why were both settings set to "Disabled". Was it simply a mistake in the actual default settings or was the manual description wrong because there is an actual reason for Dell to default these settings to "Disabled"?

The posters on this topic seemed to have answered your question. From what it reads, the correct "Default" settings for C-State and Speed Step should be "Enabled" but when the 8000's ship they are mistakenly "Disabled". This is how mine were also set, "Disabled". So all you need to do is change both to "Enabled". After I upgraded my bios I "Enabled" both my settings. Seems like the only question still unanswered is why were both settings set to "Disabled". Was it simply a mistake in the actual default settings or was the manual description wrong because there is an actual reason for Dell to default these settings to "Disabled"?

HI Kungfuzhun,

What difference does the settings make in the performance of the computer if the C-State and Speed Step were enabled and vice versa?  One more thing if I may ask, what steps did you take in upgrading your bios after which you enabled both settings? Thank you for your reply.

HI Kungfuzhun, What difference does the settings make in the performance of the computer if the C-State and Speed Step were enabled and vice versa?  One more thing if I may ask, what steps did you take in upgrading your bios after which you enabled both settings? Thank you for your reply.

To answer your second question first, you need to go to Dell's home user support page and go to drivers and downloads. Enter the appropriate info and one of the downloads should be for the latest bios. Mine shipped with A01. It's now A03. After you download it you'll find that it's an application. You just click on it and it should do the rest in flashing your bios. It was after updating my bios that I enabled both settings.

As far as the first question, I'm not truly qualified to answer it. I just picked up info from here and there. But by enabling the two settings the Intel Turbo Boost is enabled also. Check out Intel's site for a description of Turbo Boost. Basically, it's a way to run your processor's quad cores more efficiently and having the settings disabled runs all four cores at maximum speed which is wasted energy, depending on what your running. There's probably more to it but I think that's the jist of it.