My CPU Speed is not as fast as advertised!

RunOrDie · 12 Jan 2013

Good evening everyone,

I was just wondering, when checking the CPU-Z program, why is that when I am in STAMINA mode, my Core Speed is only around 1500Mhz with a Bus Speed of 99.80MHz. Shouldn't my Core Speed by 2.6GHz?

When I am in SPEED mode, my Core Speed goes up to around 3400MHz, with the same Bus Speed. Shouldn't the max Core Speed be 3.60GHz?

I have the Intel i7-3520M Processor.

PS: My DRAM speed is showing 667.5MHz, when my RAM is suppose to be 1333MHz...

bobkn · 13 Jan 2013

I'm not very familiar with the power modes of Intel CPUs. I suppose that "stamina" mode is a power saving one. I don't know whether you get the maximum turbo frequency unless one of the CPU cores is disabled.

CPU-Z report the clock frequency of the RAM. DDR (double data rate) transfers data on both leading and falling edges of the clock, so 1333 MHz DDR (DDR, DDR2, or DDR3) has a 667 MHz clock.

I can't answer all your questions, but I guess that your laptop is working as it should.

Dwarf · 13 Jan 2013

RunOrDie said:

Good evening everyone,

I was just wondering, when checking the CPU-Z program, why is that when I am in STAMINA mode, my Core Speed is only around 1500Mhz with a Bus Speed of 99.80MHz. Shouldn't my Core Speed by 2.6GHz?

When I am in SPEED mode, my Core Speed goes up to around 3400MHz, with the same Bus Speed. Shouldn't the max Core Speed be 3.60GHz?

I have the Intel i7-3520M Processor.

PS: My DRAM speed is showing 667.5MHz, when my RAM is suppose to be 1333MHz...

Your nominal bus speed is 100MHz ±1MHz, which explains why you see it as 99.80MHz. As regards core speeds, the Intel CPUs use a power saving feature known as SpeedStep. This reduces the internal multiplier on the CPU when there is little demand and raises it when demand increases. The core speed at any given point in time is the bus speed multiplied by the internal multiplier. What is the Multiplier in CPU-Z showing for both of the settings you mentioned (Stamina and Speed) ?

Your memory speed question has been answered above.