[Pilege21]

I've seen on many motherboards that there are core unlocker, gpu boost, and turbo boost. Can anyone give me any more details about these and how about doing these? I have the basics from the title names but just more information.

[snorg]

Asus motherboards have a switch you can turn on to unlock cores.

Here is an example.

This post has been edited by snorg: 06 February 2012 - 03:16 PM

[coastie65]

Core unlocker is strictly AMD. I believe that some AMD's were advertised and sold as Dual core, when in fact they were Qiuad core with two cores locked. The Core Unlocker would allow you to unlock the other two cres for a Quad core. As for Turbo Boost that started with the Intel Core i7's ( 1st Gen ), and then with the rest as they came along. I believe that AMD is using some form of it with the new Bulldozer though. Essentially, turbo Boost is a power saving thing. At Idle your processor will run at around 1.5 Ghz nad the speed will increase as needed up 3.8 Ghz ( depending on the processor ). The Motherboard I have in the one I built, has GPU boost, but haven't really looked into that aspect yet.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 06 February 2012 - 03:20 PM

[snorg]

AMD Phenom II X6 series has turbo too.
Other Phenom II mite have it too.

I dont use turbo, I just overclock.

[Pilege21]

Ok. Can you unlock cores with a processor like the six-core or even the eight-core. Would turbo boosting them make any difference?

With overclocking whould that effect the speed of a six or eight core or even a quad and how would you go about doing that?

This post has been edited by Pilege21: 06 February 2012 - 04:28 PM

[coastie65]

Pilege21, on 06 February 2012 - 04:15 PM, said:

Ok. Can you unlock cores with a processor like the six-core or even the eight-core. Would turbo boosting them make any difference?

With overclocking whould that effect the speed of a six or eight core or even a quad and how would you go about doing that?

No. It was some, like the Athlon x2 that could be unlocked.

[Rommel]

Keep in mind if you buy a 2 core cpu or a 4 core, it doesn't guarantee you can unlock 1 or two cores.
Some unlocking fails due to the cpu.

So it's a risk to buy dual core and automatically think you'll end up with a quad.

Also, you may unlock cores that become unstable under heavy load.
Use intel burn and toucher the cores if you unlock them to see if they are stable.

[waldojim]

coastie65, on 06 February 2012 - 03:19 PM, said:

Core unlocker is strictly AMD. I believe that some AMD's were advertised and sold as Dual core, when in fact they were Qiuad core with two cores locked. The Core Unlocker would allow you to unlock the other two cres for a Quad core. As for Turbo Boost that started with the Intel Core i7's ( 1st Gen ), and then with the rest as they came along. I believe that AMD is using some form of it with the new Bulldozer though. Essentially, turbo Boost is a power saving thing. At Idle your processor will run at around 1.5 Ghz nad the speed will increase as needed up 3.8 Ghz ( depending on the processor ). The Motherboard I have in the one I built, has GPU boost, but haven't really looked into that aspect yet.

Turbo boost is not meant for power savings, it is actually a 'gimmick' trying to sell you something you normally won't see. Yes, I know that some systems are better than others, but bear with me a moment, and I will explain.

Intel SpeedStep, and AMD Cool 'n Quiet are the technologies designed to save power, and keep your machine quiet. Those are the functions that limit clock speed based on work load.

Turbo Boost (Intel), and Turbo Core (AMD) are performance enhancing features. In truth though, once you fully stress your machine, neither system is designed to allow the 'peak' rates.

The way it works is quite simple. You have a processor (lets say with 4 cores) that has a TDP of 95 watts. It also has a base clock of 2.8 Ghz. Lets run through several scenarios:

If you have a single threaded application running 100% on one core, then both designs are meant to increase clock speed to 3.4Ghz (roughly) for that one core, while simultaneously dropping the clock speeds of the other cores to 2.2Ghz (again, give or take).

If you have an app running 2 threads at 100% load, then you get two cores at 3.2Ghz now, and the other two at 2.2Ghz.

If you have an app running 3 threads, then you get 3.0Ghz on three cores, and 2.2Ghz on the remaining core.

and with a fully loaded CPU, you get 2.8Ghz.

The entire time, your CPU will ensure that it stays AT OR UNDER the design TDP.

So in a way, it is a gimmick in that system builders sell the machines as "up to 3.4Ghz" machines, which is sort of correct, while still being deceitful. At the same time, the actual features do allow you to get a processor that has consistently high performance no matter the workload.

[waldojim]

coastie65, on 06 February 2012 - 05:01 PM, said:

Pilege21, on 06 February 2012 - 04:15 PM, said:

Ok. Can you unlock cores with a processor like the six-core or even the eight-core. Would turbo boosting them make any difference?

With overclocking whould that effect the speed of a six or eight core or even a quad and how would you go about doing that?

No. It was some, like the Athlon x2 that could be unlocked.

The Sempron, Athlon X2, the Athlon X3, and the Phenom X2's could all potentially be unlocked.

[waldojim]

Rommel, on 06 February 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Keep in mind if you buy a 2 core cpu or a 4 core, it doesn't guarantee you can unlock 1 or two cores.
Some unlocking fails due to the cpu.

So it's a risk to buy dual core and automatically think you'll end up with a quad.

Also, you may unlock cores that become unstable under heavy load.
Use intel burn and toucher the cores if you unlock them to see if they are stable.

To add to this, I found the rate to be about 50/50 what would and would not unlock. I also found that some chips were picky about which boards would unlock it.

Some have claimed that extra cores have helped make the unlocked cores stable, yet I never found any real merit in that. Then again, I never found any merit in the idea that some cores were unstable only under heavy load. I found that ANY load, once placed against that core would either work, or not. The Sempron was this way, I tried everything to stabilize the core, but once I hit it with Prime 95, the errors popped right up. Couldn't figure out for the life of me why the system was acting so crazy until I saw it... I was so used to unlocked cores "just working".

[Rommel]

waldojim, on 06 February 2012 - 09:05 PM, said:

To add to this, I found the rate to be about 50/50 what would and would not unlock. I also found that some chips were picky about which boards would unlock it.

Some have claimed that extra cores have helped make the unlocked cores stable, yet I never found any real merit in that. Then again, I never found any merit in the idea that some cores were unstable only under heavy load. I found that ANY load, once placed against that core would either work, or not. The Sempron was this way, I tried everything to stabilize the core, but once I hit it with Prime 95, the errors popped right up. Couldn't figure out for the life of me why the system was acting so crazy until I saw it... I was so used to unlocked cores "just working".

My experiance is 50/50.

Phenom II, unlocked to a quad.
Athlon II on the same motherboard, unlocked nothing.

When I was OCing my Phenom after unlocking two cores, when I went beyond the max it could take, it would crash and sometimes one of the unlocked cores would relock and I'd reboot to a 3 core processor.
After correcting the over OCing, I unlocked the forth core again.
This actually happened a couple times.

Did you ever experiance or hear of that WJ?

[coastie65]

waldojim, on 06 February 2012 - 08:58 PM, said:

coastie65, on 06 February 2012 - 03:19 PM, said:

Core unlocker is strictly AMD. I believe that some AMD's were advertised and sold as Dual core, when in fact they were Qiuad core with two cores locked. The Core Unlocker would allow you to unlock the other two cres for a Quad core. As for Turbo Boost that started with the Intel Core i7's ( 1st Gen ), and then with the rest as they came along. I believe that AMD is using some form of it with the new Bulldozer though. Essentially, turbo Boost is a power saving thing. At Idle your processor will run at around 1.5 Ghz nad the speed will increase as needed up 3.8 Ghz ( depending on the processor ). The Motherboard I have in the one I built, has GPU boost, but haven't really looked into that aspect yet.

Turbo boost is not meant for power savings, it is actually a 'gimmick' trying to sell you something you normally won't see. Yes, I know that some systems are better than others, but bear with me a moment, and I will explain.

Intel SpeedStep, and AMD Cool 'n Quiet are the technologies designed to save power, and keep your machine quiet. Those are the functions that limit clock speed based on work load.

Turbo Boost (Intel), and Turbo Core (AMD) are performance enhancing features. In truth though, once you fully stress your machine, neither system is designed to allow the 'peak' rates.

The way it works is quite simple. You have a processor (lets say with 4 cores) that has a TDP of 95 watts. It also has a base clock of 2.8 Ghz. Lets run through several scenarios:

If you have a single threaded application running 100% on one core, then both designs are meant to increase clock speed to 3.4Ghz (roughly) for that one core, while simultaneously dropping the clock speeds of the other cores to 2.2Ghz (again, give or take).

If you have an app running 2 threads at 100% load, then you get two cores at 3.2Ghz now, and the other two at 2.2Ghz.

If you have an app running 3 threads, then you get 3.0Ghz on three cores, and 2.2Ghz on the remaining core.

and with a fully loaded CPU, you get 2.8Ghz.

The entire time, your CPU will ensure that it stays AT OR UNDER the design TDP.

So in a way, it is a gimmick in that system builders sell the machines as "up to 3.4Ghz" machines, which is sort of correct, while still being deceitful. At the same time, the actual features do allow you to get a processor that has consistently high performance no matter the workload.

I have an Intel Turbo Boost Monitor app installed and you can watch that. At boot it can go from almost nothing to 3.8 and back. Just depends on the immediate needs, as the thing varies throughout boot.

[waldojim]

Rommel, on 07 February 2012 - 04:08 AM, said:

waldojim, on 06 February 2012 - 09:05 PM, said:

To add to this, I found the rate to be about 50/50 what would and would not unlock. I also found that some chips were picky about which boards would unlock it.

Some have claimed that extra cores have helped make the unlocked cores stable, yet I never found any real merit in that. Then again, I never found any merit in the idea that some cores were unstable only under heavy load. I found that ANY load, once placed against that core would either work, or not. The Sempron was this way, I tried everything to stabilize the core, but once I hit it with Prime 95, the errors popped right up. Couldn't figure out for the life of me why the system was acting so crazy until I saw it... I was so used to unlocked cores "just working".

My experiance is 50/50.

Phenom II, unlocked to a quad.
Athlon II on the same motherboard, unlocked nothing.

When I was OCing my Phenom after unlocking two cores, when I went beyond the max it could take, it would crash and sometimes one of the unlocked cores would relock and I'd reboot to a 3 core processor.
After correcting the over OCing, I unlocked the forth core again.
This actually happened a couple times.

Did you ever experiance or hear of that WJ?

Nope, none of mine ever locked down a single core. I did find that my machines were terribly unstable if I tried to OC an unlocked chip (past about 300mhz or so over stock). SO I just decided to be happy with 3.2Ghz quad core chips!

[waldojim]

coastie65, on 07 February 2012 - 06:29 AM, said:

I have an Intel Turbo Boost Monitor app installed and you can watch that. At boot it can go from almost nothing to 3.8 and back. Just depends on the immediate needs, as the thing varies throughout boot.

Oh yes, it is insane how quickly the chips change speed. Truth is, even when you place a steady load on them, you can still see those speeds change constantly. It will do everything it can to ensure that it does the work as fast as possible - under its design power limits.

[Pilege21]

Ok, I believe I understand. Just been doing some more research and reading your posts. It seems easy to do, just going to stick with the quad cores on either Intel or AMD and not hassle with the core unlocking and things like that. Thanks for your guys posts and advice!