e6500 Core 2 Duo P8700 Clock Speed Issue

I was wondering why my CPU would go over its factory clock speed when i didn't even overclock it its kinda weird this is what its getting



if anyone can answer this that would be great thanks

 

Intel Dynamic Acceleration technology (IDA)

 

When running single threaded tasks and one core is in the C3/C6 sleep state, the other core can automatically overclock and start using a 10.0 multiplier instead of the 9.5 multiplier which is the default for a P8700.

If you want a more accurate look at what each core is up to then try downloading ThrottleStop. When you first start it up it is in monitoring mode and can very accurately track what each core is up to. If you run a single thread of Prime95 then you should see one core use Intel Dynamic Acceleration while the other core is mostly asleep. You will never likely see the full 10.00 multiplier in ThrottleStop during any 1 second sampling period. There are always background tasks that need to be taken care of. This will wake up your second core which immediately drops the multiplier for both cores down to 9.5. When the background task is taken care of, one core goes back to sleep and the other core speeds up by switching to the 10.0 multiplier again. Not a huge boost in performance but I guess it's better than nothing. The newer Core i7-720 CPUs can use as much as 9 bins of turbo boost so the 12 multiplier can jump up to 21 when lightly loaded. That's much more noticeable.