CPU-Z ghz confusion

[ToxicXGL]

I recently looked at my cpu speed through CPU-z and it said that the core speed was around 1648-1647 im beyond confusion i have an i5 @ 3.10. Am i reading cpuz wrong?

 

[LMiller7]

You are reading the speed correctly.
Many modern CPUs have the ability to run at less than rated speed, which they will do when the demand for CPU resources are modest. This keeps power consumption and heat down, something which is of particular importance with laptops. Why run the CPU at full speed when it has little to do, which is typically most of the time? But when more is required from the CPU the speed will rise to maximum.

 

[Viscon]

launch some CPU intensive application and open CPU-Z.
you'll see a max speed then.

 

[ToxicXGL]

Thanks. So i was looking around a bit more and saw that my cpu has a boost clock to 3.40 but do i need the intel turbo boost tech in order to achive 3.4?. Max it reached was 3.29 while running crysis 3

 

[Viscon]

Thanks. So i was looking around a bit more and saw that my cpu has a boost clock to 3.40 but do i need the intel turbo boost tech in order to achive 3.4?. Max it reached was 3.29 while running crysis 3

your CPU factory freq is 3.1 so if it reaches 3.29 i suspect it already uses turbo boost.
why not 3.4? maybe it didn't need more than 3.29 on crysis3?
you may try Intel Burn Test to stress your CPU and see how high it goes.

 

[logicearth]

Turbo Boost is also effected by the number of cores in use, if only one core is used it is more likely to get to the 3.4 GHz but the turbo boost is reduced the more cores in use. Crysis 3 uses multiple CPU cores.