i7 question

being a noob on i7, what does it mean or do when i have the i7 720qm 1.6 turbo to 2.8? when is it running in 1.6 and or 2.8? can this processor be oc and how does that affect the turbo mode?

 

Can't be OC'd in BIOS on any alienware, you can use eleet however.
When in turbo it OC's itself to 2.8 GHZ.

 

when using all 4 core it uses 1.6
when using a single core it turbo up to 2.8.

 

thanks guys

 

This is a handy table to reference, I posted it just recently in another thread. As you can see below, if Turbo Boost is enabled on the i7-720QM, the max core frequency with 1 active core is 2.8GHz, with 2 active cores it's 2.4GHz and with 3 or 4 active cores it's 1.73GHz. With Turbo Boost "off" it reverts to it's base max frequency of 1.6GHz.

 

But how exactly can you enable "turbo boost"? If it is done automatically, what triggers it (thresholds, conditions, etc)? If it can be done manually, what settings can I set to make it so?

 

Everything should be automated.

 

Right, as I understand it, it will automatically turbo boost if the application isn't using all the cores. No manual intervention required.

 

You can overclock the CPU in the bios or enable disable turbo boost. Yes it does Autoboost according to intel.

 

If I mainly game and use office, internet, and media center, what would I be better off getting?

i7-620M
i7-720QM

 

eleet only works with extreme procs.

 

Well, my 520M slices through every game so far, and it's light for the battery. I'd go with the 620M hands down, but that's my own preference. Other will argue for sure. Also, I'll be getting a 720M in 2 weeks from now and will make a review of both in the R2, run some benches and games, so stay tuned.

 

If your just gonna do gaming office and internet and media center i'd stick with the 52/540 i5/ If you plan to encode movies and music production i;d go to the i7s.

 

Thank you for the information, I have read that a quad core really would not be needed for what I listed.

 

Yea quad would be over kill, I got the base i7 720 and it encodes just a bit slower as my stock i7 920 in my desktop, I series chips are some good chips

 

Regarding the Turbo Boost feature, I've found instances where all cores are well above 2.5GHz (nearly 2.7GHz even) on all cores simultaneously with an i7-720qm.

WaR also mentioned something about this, but it may be an incorrect reading with hwinfo32. I hope it isn't.

 

Awesome, I am going to buy one in the next few weeks, I almost went with the Asus G73jh-A1, but reading up on AW, it seems to be a well built system.

 

He is right, is does not work correctly. Try argus monitor.

 

The biggest advantage the Asus G73 has is portability and better extreme proc OC'ing.
...and non-extreme proc OC'ing options.

 

Yea i get the same reading. i dont know if its mistaking 2.8 on 1 core and displaying them as all being 2.8 but when i run bionic on my laptop it des a good job at maxing out all the cores and doing something useful while being able to check temps at the same time with HWstatus because you cant do that using 3dmark

Edit: And it allow me to monitor the clock speeds. the readings say at about 80-90% core usage on all cores that the clock speed it around 14-1500mhz occasionally jumping to 1600's Im gonna try Getting bionic to use one core /2 threads only to see turbo boost effect.

 

Riddle me this: Why does the i7 (720QM) show all 4 cores at 2.6 to 2.7'ish when using HWInfo32, and running nothing else in the background?

 

What about other monitoring software like HWMonitor, Everest, etc.? Do they all show the same?

 

Try the program Mandrake mentioned a page back, I don't have an i7 laptop available right now to test with.

 

I didn't read the whole thread. I should have. Anyway, CPUID also shows the i7 running at turbo speed. I Googled Argus Monitor and a bunch of reptiles came up. Lol.

Anyway, not that I mind too much, so perhaps others can check?

 

Reptiles are cold-blooded and are very good at monitoring temps. See the hint?

 

I'll do it whenever I can get my hands on an i7-720qm notebook.

Maybe by tomorrow.

Edit: I tried it out on this computer just for fun, and it's a nice, straightforward program. Thanks for the recommendation Mandrake.

 

It is a bug. AFAIK the 4 cores on a 720QM naturally resort to 1.73 when turbo boost is enabled and all 4 cores are being used. With it off the max is 1.6 for all 4. With my i5 520M both cores when running Crysis Wars or any other game or app that uses both cores run at 2.66. With turbo boost off they only run at their naturally rated 2.4.

 

http://www.argusmonitor.com/en/turboboost.php

 

I got the 720QM even though I don't need it as I just game and surf webs and some office. But I need to add extra cash like €139 for the 620M.

I'm not sure if its just because the 720QM is part of the offer right now but is the 620M more expensive than 720QM?

 

Yes, because it's not reading the cores correctly and you have it in "high performance" power setting mode.