The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Is my CPU supposed to stay at top speed (in terms of MHz), even when NOT doing anything demanding, like for example just being in Windows using simple programs or while watching a movie?
If you are in high performance mode, it will stay at the top almost all the time, if you switch to balanced or power saver, the cpu with lower its clock speed in accordance with what it needs to do, so for gaming keep it on high performance otherwise it doesn't matter too much.
I switched it back to Balance mode a couple of minutes before your reply, and core speeds still seem to be at their max. I'm giving them time to adjust but they don't seem to be going down. I have a 4790K (4GHz - 4.4GHz), and speeds as of right now are around 4.2GHz. All I have open is a bunch of desktop applications like the browser, Word, and Spotify.
Try power saver, and also it really isn't an issue, unless your temps are high, and then you have bigger issues. Just don't leave it like that for a week straight, turn it off each day and its not a problem, mine is always on max. My balanced mode is on a laptop so maybe it is different than your (desktop I'm assuming? unless u have a huge laptop) cpu power settings.
i7-4790K drops to about 800MHz when idle with balanced or power saving plans active. Power saving caps the max clock at 2.2GHz IIRC. If this isn't happening then try resetting the power plan settings in the Windows control panel.
Regarding temperatures, you should read the undervolting guide at the start of the P750ZM owners' lounge thread. A light undervolt will get your peak temperatures down to around 80C.
They did mention undervolting to me, but what I can't seem to digest well is the idea of buying the most powerful CPU I can find and then having to down-power it for it to not melt. Shouldn't it simply NOT reach 100 degrees, by design?
Every processor of a given SKU (ie, i7-4790K) is a little bit different from every other processor of the same SKU (cf "silicon lottery"). Some need a little more power than others. Because of this, Intel and AMD set the stock power draw high enough that every unit of that SKU will have sufficient power. Excess power is not used for anything; it just gets turned into waste heat.
Undervolting is shaving off the excess power drawn by the processor. The processor still runs at full speed; undervolting makes it run more efficiently.
@ratinox , I see we have a very similar system. Same CPU, GPU and same amount of RAM. So I wanted to ask, did you undervolt your CPU? How much / to which value?
Well from what he just said you can't copy his, because each one will be different, check out the lounge for owners and they will help you through it. Also geez those temps are high, desktop grade cpus usually aren't meant to go that high while laptop ones are (sort of), so you may want to repaste or undervolt.
HTwingnut has a video of the P750zm being run through wprime, once at stock and once at a -100mV undervolt.
His temps drop 15c and as you can see from the video performance is unchanged on the i7-4790k.
That being said, he hits 87c at the stock clocks during the stress test. I doubt your CPU should be getting that hot.
I do undervolt mine because without undervolting the CPU was hitting 100C under load and throttling. I never bothered with trying to find the ideal undervolt point. As per the early Batman thread post, I set the core undervolt at -80mV and the cache undervolt to -100mV, ran the XTU stress test for 20 minutes. It passed, CPU core temps with automatic fans didn't go above 80C so I called it good enough for me. Your mileage will almost certainly vary.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
