A Curious Question Regarding CPU Speed

I would have figured that CPU-Z is compatible with Santa Rosa CPUs, but maybe not. It randomly thinks I have a T7700 CPu and an X7700, whatever the heck that is. the Intelm utility reports something else entirely.

Can anyone explain the discrepancy?


This is on battery power, and I have been tweaking to get the best battery life, so thats why I am asking. Other utilities either report 2.2ghz speed, or the same as CPU-Z, EXCEPT the Intel utility. It certainly feels as slow as the Intel utility reports.

 

I think (on some CPUs) CPU-Z determines what CPU you have not only by the CPUs SPD data but what speeds and spec its running at as well. Try using a "raw" cpu speed utility like THGs clock frequency utility. I couldn't find a link to it so I'm just attaching it here. My first guess is their is a bug or hiccup in throttling software your using. I dont have a lot of time atm but i will be back on later this evening to see what else i can dig up.

 

That doesnt appear to work. The clock freq. is all over the place, raning from ~590mhz to ~890 on my currently modifed power save mode, and does not cap out when I set the clock freq. to 100%. Well it does, but a good 20 seconds later, after I have set it back to a power save again.

I think it may have to do with the fact that Santa Rosa CPUs run the two cores at different speeds...one core can run faster than the CPU is rated while the other one is clocked down. In other words, both cores dont have to run at the same speed.

 

One quick thought before I have to run out the door. Have you tried sandra or everest? Also if your throttling by the FSB it could be your ram speed slowing things down not the CPU speed.

 

Not Sandra...but I will.

Everest gave similar results.

As I understand--Santa Rosas can underclock fsb, ram, voltage, and maybe even multiplier.

 

I give up. Not only Sandra report my fsb as 1.1ghz but it said that I was running at full speed.

Im not.

Anyway...it locked up my computer during a cpu benchmark. I give up...guess I should just accept what the Intel utility says.

 

What are you using to throttle the system?

 

Vista. I have the CPU performance capped at 5% while on battery. I realize that this does not translate to 5% frequency.

Note that Intel does show what frequencies I can run at:

2.40, 2.20, 1.20, 0.80

2.40 is overclocked using IDA, where one core is turned off for single threaded apps, and the other core is overclocked. 800mhz requires the FSB to be dropped to 400mhz, along with the voltage drop.