Processor speed

[Calibound88]

W00t. Finnaly got my comp built, up and running.

Vista is really different and unusual...and SLOW compared to xp
anyway....

I have a e7300 processor at 2.66ghz.
Why on vista it says "Intel E7300 @ 2.66...2.13 ghz"
I checked with CpuId and the core speed jumps around from 1.6 to about 2.13.

I knows this noob question, but why is does the core speed jump around the 1.6 to 2.1 range and not to 2.66 where it is bench marked?

 

[Cabbs]

Intel Speedstep. What it does is drop the multiplier and voltage to consume less power when idle. You can change it in the BIOS.

 

[Calibound88]

achem...exactly how to do that? =>

 

[worshipme]

achem...exactly how to do that? =>

There's no need to, it's not going to affect performance in a negative way, and it's saving power and reducing heat.

It doesn't play nice with overclocking sometimes, though.

 

[rohan23]

It depends on your motherboard. Here are the general steps.

1) Get into BIOS.
2) Look for "Power"
3) Go to processor power options. (Maybe)
4) Find Intel Speedstep and disable it.

I just have to press delete to get into my BIOS. I don't know how it is for your build.

 

[Calibound88]

Hmm...if there is no need to disable it because it'll "power up" when needed

I think I'll just leave it on

 

[wol-va-rine]

that doesn't sound like speed step at all, it should drop the multiplier from 9 to 6, so the cpu speed should drop accordingly, it should basically be 2/3s, it should be showing 2.66ghz and dropping to 1.76ghz (my OCed E6600 drops from 3.0ghz to 2.0ghz), the real question seems to be why is the processor only showing up as 2.13ghz...?

 

[Calibound88]

Hmm.

Rite now Cpuid

Core speed 1.600 mhz
Multiplier 6x

and my ram is 400mhz tho its rated at 800

Is this normal?

 

[andrew26]

Hmm.

Rite now Cpuid

Core speed 1.600 mhz
Multiplier 6x

and my ram is 400mhz tho its rated at 800

Is this normal?

It says 400 because it is DDR2 which always displays 1/2 the actual speed of the RAM.

 

[NEED WOW NOW]

DDR2 is a dual data rate spec, so the 800Mhz speed you see there is the true speed, while 800Mhz is the effective speed. Dual Data rate is basically when data is sent on two pathways at 400Mhz, so in theory it's 800Mhz speed.

If you want to disable the Intel Speedstep, go into your Vista Power options and set it to High Performance.
By default, your computer is set to Balanced which uses Speedstep. If you switch it to High Performance then your CPU should stay at the advertised speed. It actually does increase performance as it doesn't have to keep switching speeds. The difference for me when I switched it from Balanced was large so I recommend doing it.