Any reason why a CPU would throttle at 100% utilisation?

[chickadee]

So I noticed a weird quirk, my x5660 at stock will boost up to 3.2ghz and does so regularly.

The weird thing is when i run a benchmark that strained all 12 cores to 100% the speed will jump to 3.2ghz then quickly drop down to 2.8ghz which is the unboosted clock and sit there until the test is stopped then will boost again quickly to 3.2 and then downclock to its idle speed of 1.6ghz.

The temperatures even at 100% never get above 40c and sit at 5c above ambient when idle so the temperatures are fine.

 

[new boy]

Boost probably isn't designed to run 100% at all cores. It will do 12 cores at 2.8GHz, 8 cores @ 3GHZ and 4 cores @ 3.2GHZ. These are just examples but you get the idea.

 

[chickadee]

Boost probably isn't designed to run 100% at all cores. It will do 12 cores at 2.8GHz, 8 cores @ 3GHZ and 4 cores @ 3.2GHZ. These are just examples but you get the idea.

OK that makes perfect sense, cheers.

 

[darket]

You can use a simple program to stop Throttling , been using it for years on my laptops, works a treat and lots of tutorials on line if you get stuck.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/p6wkzr

 

[DragonQ]

Any reason why a CPU would throttle at 100% utilisation?

Too much power draw and/or temperature. The reason "turbo" modes exist is so that manufacturers can claim chips "boost up to 4 GHz", for example, when in reality they can only sustain that speed for a short period of time before they go over their TDP. Bit of a con and it makes it tricky to compare CPUs that don't let you disable throttling but there you go.

You can use a simple program to stop Throttling , been using it for years on my laptops, works a treat and lots of tutorials on line if you get stuck.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/p6wkzr

Never worked on my desktop.