The ThrottleStop Guide

@ Unclewebb: Great to have you back sir! After you threw in the towel and stayed silent I didn't check back again, until now.
Glad to see a new version, though the download is 8.10 while one of the screenshots shows 8.20...

p.s. your first post needs some pic refresh

 

I've been using throttlestop for some time now, And when i turn my overclock profile on, and open the limit reasons app, MPO light up sometimes, i think it's linked to the memory but i would like to know exactly what it means and how to make it go away without lowering my overclock if possible.
It's a 4720HQ in a G751 with 16go of stock RAM, stock timings and FSB at 101.70 MHz
Thanks

 

@unclewebb 8.2 pls

 

Hey guys, by how much can you undervolt your skylake CPUs? I'm getting an i7-6700HQ and I'm so excited for what it is going to be capable. My other concern is if would it be possible disable two of the CPU cores? I'd like to make an very efficient dual core ULV from it.

 

@ole!!! - TS seems to work OK with Broadwell E but it does not yet support Turbo Boost 3.0. As far as I know, I think this feature lets you run different cores at different speeds. It should be easy to add this to ThrottleStop but I prefer to run all cores as fast as possible. Maybe some day if I get a Haswell E.

@TheSkull52 - I am not sure what MPO stands for. Hopefully @Dufus is around and can explain this.

I like to slack off during the summer. Too hot to be sitting inside programming. There are a few things I would like to add to TS before releasing 8.20. New ideas pop up faster than I can program them.

@JKnows - You can use msconfig to disable half of a quad core CPU. Click on the Boot tab, Advanced Options... and then set number of processors to 4 instead of 8. This trick usually gets you 4 virtual cores which on most systems is 2 cores 4 threads. With a little bit of under volting, you have the poor man's ULV processor.

Did you really think I would walk away for good? I just needed some quiet time to work on some new features like under volting.
TS is my OCD.

 

Thanks for the reply, i will wait for @Dufus to come around!

 

8.2 is coming soon-ish.

 

I found out the reason why opening up ThrottleStop stopped throttling while GPU was active. BD-PROCHOT was being disabled by ThrottleStop! How could I forget about that!

Now I've kind of become obsessed with squeezing out every bit of performance I can from this laptop. I wrote up a guide with what I've done so far in terms of performance and cooling mods here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/ux32vd-extreme-performance-guide.792881/

I still want to do more! I dumped the BIOS with fptw64 and unlocked the BIOS with AMIBCP hoping to find an option for BD-PROCHOT as this is one of the hidden options on some other Asus laptops. I could not find it. I found a whole range of CPU PPM, TDP, configurable TDP, and core ratio limits but I don't know what to change them to. From your experience, is there any chance I could up the highest multipliers on this Ivy Bridge 3517U?

Any ideas for what else I could change to improve performance? If I post some pictures of the unlocked BIOS screens would you be able to guide me a little?

There is a hidden BIOS option for "TCC Activation offset" which seems to change the PROCHOT value. The number entered is the offset down from 105 that the PROCHOT becomes. So I entered 10 to raise it from 90c to 95c.

Thanks again for your knowledge and help!

 

the thing i find is, more core a cpu has, the less cherry it becomes simply due to probability even if it comes to highest binned xeons. 4c all well binned can clock to say 5ghz, for 8c to do the same all 8 core must be stable and at a very gold voltage too which is what makes it harder.

reason for that turbo 3.0 caught my attention is we have so many single threaded application that still doesnt take advantage of new instruction/ multi process and IF we can get say an octa core chip with 1 super high binned core, we can clock that 1 core upwards 5 or 5.5ghz which would benefit a lot lol.

for the other cores to clock that high would mean too much voltage and its tough, though i get u i wouldnt mind all cores running at 5ghz but simply impossible.

 

@TheSkull52 MPO means Maximum Performance Override and one will typically see this when a performance state is requested above what is set at MCHBAR + 0x5990.

 

Thanks @Dufus
Here is an example of MPO.



MCHBAR + 0x5990 is set to 0x18 hex which is 24 decimal. This is limiting my CPU to the 24 multiplier which is triggering MPO in Limit Reasons. On my laptop, this is normally set to 0xFF which is the maximum value. This setting will not interfere with the CPU using the maximum turbo boost multiplier so no more MPO throttling.

 

Thanks for your quick reply Dufus.

Unclewebb, so i should be able to change this with RWEverything right? Do you know any good tuto ?

 

@TheSkull52 Actually I'm on call out and will be gone for one or two months. In transit for the moment. Pretty sure a guide has been posted before including relevant PCI data but cannot remember where. I did write a program to set this as well but without locking it, maybe Unclewebb has a link. It also depends whether that register is being set dynamically or not. If it's just BIOS setting it then no problem otherwise you might be fighting the system for control.

 

Thanks for the info, i will look for the guide, and see if Unclewebb has the link for your program.. I think it's the bios controling it, but i'm curious to find out for sure.
Have a good day.

 

Hi hdneo, how did you achieve this overclock?
I have y50 with 4720hq. I can only overclock at 3.3Ghz at all cores. I cant even overclock my cpu to its base hyper-threading value which is 3.6Ghz at all cores
Which settings should I set beside the offset voltage values in throttlestop?

 

I would love to know too, but i don't think it's doable on the 4720hq. However, i also have a 4720hq, i'm running it at x38, x37, x36, x36 without issue and BCLK clocked at 102 MHz.
You should be able to do the same with Throttlestop 8.10

Edit: you can find some modded bios to unlock somes features...

 

you must downgrade microcode (in bios file) to rev 1 or 2 then cpu multiplier will be unlocked.

 

Three quick ThrottleStop questions on a Dell 9550 i5 (6300HQ) on W10P clean install:

1. The ThrottleStop POWER SAVER checkbox seems to cap the CPU at about 1.5GHz in higher-stress environments (in both High Performance & Balanced power in W10's power options). The CPU speed meter shows slow speed and I notice the slow speed. Is the POWER SAVER checkbox in ThrottleStop performing properly or am I misunderstanding its purpose?

2. The ThrottleStopDocs.html file does not say that using High Performance power option is required for W10 (it does make specific mention for W8, W7, XP). I think I have seen posts implying otherwise. Kindly confirm.

3. FYI below are my idle results (High Performance & Balanced power options in W10). The voltages & C0% are significantly different ....but the temps are about the same. I understand the sensors are incorrect on an absolute basis but guess they have some rough use on a relative basis. Is one option really better than the other?

High Performance power option (min processor state @100%)
Temp ~33*C
voltage ID ~0.9
CPU ~3.1GHz
C0% ~0.8

Balanced power option (min processor state @5%)
Temp ~33*C
voltage ID ~0.7
CPU ~1.0GHz
C0% ~1.7

Thanks again for the great software!

 

I think I can probably answer Point #1 & 2. I would use High Performance power plan (perhaps with modifications to some settings) on any laptop I owned, also in Windows 10 - with the most important variable be setting MIN & MAX Processor state both to 100%. The reason being: idle tasks & any other user created tasks happen quicker with High Performance Power plan and specifically with MIN & MAX Processor state both set to 100% - this means that the CPU once it completes it's task will drop naturally to a lower C-state regardless of what you have set with the Power Plans, and in those lower C-states Intel CPUs don't use much power. If you were to use a Power Saver profile then it would just take longer to perform the tasks and the CPU would stay longer outside of the C-states - so ironically this isn't really a battery saving behaviour. I think it's far better to allow the processor to complete tasks quickly & then it will spend more time in lower C-states, and as a bonus will complete your work quicker. High Performance power plan is more efficient in my view - specifically the MIN MAX Processor states being both set to 100%, but you'd probably want to change other settings like screen brightness, etc, to decrease battery usage. Don't worry about the temperature of the CPU, as long as fan behaviour isn't annoying and temperatures are below say 100degC.

 

I can't speak to your other 2 questions. But you will find that, at idle, the balanced power option will consume much less power in a idle state.

For example on my i7-6500U:

Balanced:
Package Power 0.7-0.9W
C7s: Mostly in C7 state or lower

High Performance:
Package Power: 1.5W-2.0W
C7s: mostly in C3 state

The higher C0 state is a result of the fact that your CPU is running at a lower clock speed overall - nothing to be concerned about.

In short:
Balanced Power = Lower power consumption and Longer Battery life on burst loads but with the trade off of minor (but unperceivable to me) latency (because the CPU has to power up from a lower state).
High Performance = Higher power consumption and shorter battery life on burst loads but without that latency penalty (this might be an issue when gaming for example).

You can have the best of both worlds by copying your high performance settings into the AC profile and the balanced settings into the battery profile of a new custom power profile - this is what I do and it works quite well.

 

I am having a problem that when I lock some options on Throttlestop I am permanently locked out. Is there a way to re-enable all the check boxes/sliders which are greyed out after accidently clicking 'lock'?

 

That is the thing. When a CPU is idle and spending the majority of its time in one of the deeper C States like C7, the reported MHz becomes unimportant. If the core temperature is the same in two different situations and the fan speed is the same; the amount of power going to the CPU core must be pretty much the same too. People see 800 MHz instead of 3000 MHz and automatically think that their CPU is consuming way less power at 800 MHz but this isn't true. If it was consuming less power, you should see a lower core temperature. In some situations, it might actually be consuming more total power when running this slow because it has to spend more time in the C0 state to get the job done. The reason Intel is designing bursty CPUs that get up to full speed ASAP is because this is the state where the CPU is most efficient.

Another problem is that people use the power consumption data that ThrottleStop, XTU, HWiNFO, etc. reports when making comparisons. This data is not measured power consumption. It is calculated within the CPU and is intended to control the turbo boost feature and that is it. It is calculated using the VID voltage. When a CPU is lightly loaded, you can make a huge change in the multiplier and this will make a huge change in the VID voltage but this change might not make much of a difference at all in measured power consumption. Sure it makes a significant difference in reported power consumption but that is only because this data is based on VID voltage. Unless you are measuring the power going to the CPU socket, you are not proving anything by using inaccurate software calculated power consumption data.

The Power Saver feature in ThrottleStop was designed for the first generation Core 2 Duo processors. I do not recommend using this feature on any of the Core i processors. What this feature does on a 6300HQ in Windows 10 will depend on how the bios has setup the CPU. If it does not do what you would expect it to do or like it to do then do not use it.

The original purpose of ThrottleStop was so users could get maximum performance when plugged in. When running on battery power, it might be best to exit ThrottleStop. ThrottleStop is an efficient program but the less software running in the background on your system, the better. Each laptop is unique. Some users might need to leave ThrottleStop running when on battery power to make sure the voltage settings, etc. stay the same.

I recommend using the High Performance Windows profile no matter what operating system you are using. This is the best way to give ThrottleStop control of your CPU. If you are using the Balanced profile, both Windows and ThrottleStop are going to be writing different data to the same CPU register, both trying to take control of things. This wastes power and CPU cycles and the results will be unpredictable.

 

Robbo99999 - Thank you so much for your detailed response on High Performance power option & its impact on C-states. Very logical and clear; I learned a lot.

Illuzn - Thank you very much for providing some real-world examples on your system and illustrating how we can have the best of both worlds.

UncleWebb - Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions with such care. This helps everyone to set up a system that is well optimized for more extreme activities (for me - gaming and digital piano).

- Based on your guide and some of your prior posts, I assumed the reported voltage data was useless but assumed the temp data had some value (despite fact that these sensors are inaccurate at low temps). An idle computer test seems somewhat useless from a practical perspective but I see how this optimization helps at the extremes. My ThrottleStopped Dell generally runs at 1/2 the temperature of my old Core2Duo. Apples to oranges but gaming is pretty good now!

- The power saver button may not be useful for i5 systems but I can still use it on my trusty core2duo backup!

- Thanks for clarifying the High Performance question on W10; I will use that only (I don't use the battery but will use the Balanced power option without ThrottleStop then)

 

That's probably related to your hardware config.
For example if you use 2 displays - operating system/drivers may limit your CPU to C2 explicitly

 

Hello Guys, Why is my CPU fluctuating at 1.3-1.4GHz when I choosed to run at 800MHz?



I have tried uncheck power saver, disable turbo, speedstep, but do not wanna run at 800MHz...

 

Haha, it probably knows better than you & has decided to operate more efficiently than you want it to - I don't think locking your CPU to 800Mhz is very efficient - we had that discussion just a few posts above. No, but if I did know how to keep it locked at 800Mhz I would tell you, maybe someone else can tell you if this is possible.

 

That just for maximizing the battery life time, I do 2GHz for browsing, 2.6GHz for gaming and 1st column is without limit for special cases. But this Skylake CPU so strange, it is consuming less than my dual core Broadwell ULV CPU in the another laptop, I am unsure if it is can be or it is running somehow incorrect. Right now linx 64 at 2GHz Throttlestop showing only 8.5W package power. It cannot be for 4 cores....

 

Read above how the power consumption figures are estimated and based on vcore (not actual consumption)...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

@DackEW - This works on my 4th Gen CPU but the 6700HQ might be using some of the new C States. Maybe it is not possible to get a steady 8 multi when using ThrottleStop on a a 6th Gen mobile CPU.

Make sure the Non Turbo Ratio in the FIVR window is set to 0 and that SpeedStep is enabled in the bios and in ThrottleStop. The Set Multiplier feature needs those 2 things set correctly. Do not check all of those other items that you have checked.

Edit - Also make sure you are using the Windows High Performance power profile so Windows and ThrottleStop are not fighting over control of your CPU speed.

 

I've followed all your recommendations and it is better now, thanks! It went down to 900MHz and stays there quite stable. I also noticed if I use the laptop with 90W adapter (instead the original 130w), the system locks the cpu speed down to 800MHz. So the CPU can run at 800MHz, but something preventing it...

 

I guess these clock problems are related to the Windows 7, because Skylake use some short of advanced speedstep and that is not supported. Without Throttlestop I would not even recommend use Windows 7 on Skylake laptops.
In Throttlestop I have now different profiles for battery, browsing, gaming and for benchmarks and the laptop runs really awesome. I did undervolting too and woww the results are shocking! The CPU was stable even at 0.18V offset. Running Linx64 the laptop's peak power consumption measuring from the wall dropped from 81W to just under 60W. That is huge difference! If I play GTAV locking the CPU at 1.8GHz, the temperature will not go over 62C, while the room temperature is 29C.
So maybe now Throttlestop is more important than ever, for Windows 7 a must thing, but it can make Skylake also crazy efficient.

 

hmm, my 5960x runs at full clocks on idle with TS until I open HWINFO64, which it clocks down to my desired idle state.

Comp ability issues with NZXT CAM over the winring file?

 

ThrottleStop's goal has always been maximum performance so to me, that quote sounds like a good thing.

If you notice anything good or bad or unusual when running TS on your 5960X, post a big pile of pics and log files, etc. so I can have a look. I have never run TS on any CPU with more than 4 cores. When programming without access to the appropriate hardware, you do a lot of guessing which can result in some bugs. Very easy to overlook something minor when you have nothing to look at.

Can you tell me what that statement really means?

Edit - Check if that other software uses a different version of WinRing0. If it does, you could try running TS and CAM from separate folders.

@DackEW - I think my Skylake desktop CPU can also run at a steady 8 multiplier so perhaps the mobile Skylake chips are a little different. When your computer is idle, what C States does ThrottleStop report? I wrote some code to detect the newer C States like C8 / C9 / C10 but so far, I have not run it on any Skylake hardware. I know the low power Skylake U CPUs support these C States as long as the bios enables them.

 

Would be, except my 5960x runs around 90-100w on idle at full clock.... Downclocked to 1.2ghz gives me around 40w. This thing is a pure power hog. Might just be a random issue. I will see if it pops up again.

You will be happy to know I have been using it and its completely fine. Any specific features you want me to test?

Actually there is one thing you can take a look at. No program to date can read my VSA voltage as more than an offset. As in, even EVGA's OC program and the bios(board is evga) cant give me the actual VSA voltage. All it does is give me an offset.

 

Here the computer is in idle now;

 

Have you tried enabling some C States in the bios like C3 / C6 / C7? Instead of down clocking by dropping the multiplier, I prefer to leave the CPU at full MHz and enable these core C States to reduce power consumption. This setup should be competitive with the 40W you are getting when reducing the multiplier.

I am assuming the VSA voltage is the voltage for the System Agent. Is this unlocked in ThrottleStop? If you were using a fixed voltage, TS should show what the CPU is set to in the monitoring table in the FIVR window or it will show if you are using offset but I do not know how to read what the actual voltage is. It might not be possible to read this voltage. Does XTU show anything?

@DackEW - It looks like your CPU is being limited to the Core C7 C state and the Package C2 C state so I doubt that it ever uses C8. I am sure some manufacturers have decided to disable some of the deeper C States. They like avoiding anything that is new or unknown.

In theory, your CPU should be able to run at a steady 8 multiplier. Can you try manually adjusting the Set Multiplier value while there is a load on the CPU. Just run something simple like a single thread of the TS Bench and while that benchmark is running, adjust Set Multiplier from 8 to 9 to 10 and then back to 9 and to 8 and see if the reported multiplier changes at all. I am mostly just curious.

Edit - My desktop Skylake can run at idle or fully loaded at the 8 multiplier.

 

@unclewebb

c state in bios is enabled. I dont have a choice to use anything but adaptive for system agent both in bios and TS.

 

@tgipier - When idle, what C States does ThrottleStop report? ThrottleStop can only report C State activity for 4 of your cores but it sounds like the deeper C States might not be enabled at all. Based on power consumption, maybe only C1E is being used and the deeper C States are all disabled.

 

C0. I have Cstates enabled in mobo bios.

 

Hi,

I have an issue with ThrottleStop (latest version as downloaded from the first post) not working properly after laptop wake up from sleep.

Basically I've recently purchased Dell Inspiron 7559 and for variety of reasons I've decided to try and install Windows 7 on it (instead of Win10 that it ships with). Got all the devices working & so on, but couldn't manage to get processor SpeedStep and/or Turbo working -- it was always stuck at either 2.2Ghz or 2.3Ghz (depending on whether or not SpeedStep was enabled in BIOS). Processor is i5-6300HQ (Skylake) at nominal 2.3Ghz (but in reality it seems like 2.3Ghz (23 multiplier) already requests turbo mode somehow).

I found ThrottleStop and after playing around a bit with it I thought I found a solution -- I made a profile with 23 (or 24) multiplier, 'power saver' checkbox and changed PowerSaver C0% to 13 (the default, I think, was 35 which means that on 4-core CPU full load on single core will not trigger 'full speed' -- and it's even worse for hyperthreaded i7 (8 cores); perhaps this default needs to be changed?).

This seems to work pretty fine. Processor runs some 800-1400MHz in power saver and then jumps to max turbo (~3.2GHz) under load.

However I found out that if I put computer to sleep and then resume -- then profile appears to be stuck in 'power saver' mode. I couldn't get it to 'unstuck' even by switching profiles. I basically have to shut down ThrottleStop and start it again to make it work.

I can probably rig some restart script using AutoHotKey or something, but I wonder if perhaps this bug could be fixed in ThrottleStop itself? Or perhaps I've missed some checkbox or something that makes it work after sleep?

Thanks!

 

It is strange. It won't take the 8 multiplier, instead 9. After changing back and forth and running TS bench as you suggested, the lowest multiplier will be the 10. But all these just windows 7 problems I guess. Other Dell users with Skylake and Win 7 without Throttlestop reported they stuck at 2.2GHz. I do not have that with Throttlestop at least, but speedstep is not working just the multipliers that I set manually.

 

Thanks for the pointer about 'power saver'.

However it doesn't look like I have many options there. SpeedStep & Turbo do not work regardless of what I've tried. Only practical way to get it to work 'properly' under Win7 seems to be force-set multiplier to turbo + power saver.

I did, in fact, check whether 'power saver' is important -- running some 40-minutes video from USB stick under 'power saver' gives ~2.3W TDP (very stable value). Doing exactly the same without 'power saver' (effectively under full-turbo) gives ~4.3 TDP (also very stable value). So it doesn't look like sleep states are the answer -- at least not under this configuration.

So is there any chance that something can be done about CPU not exiting 'power saver' state after sleep wake-up without restarting ThrottleStop?

 

The TDP power consumption data that all monitoring software reports may have nothing to do with actual power consumption. This is especially true when the CPU is lightly loaded. This number is calculated by the CPU to control the Turbo Boost feature. Intel never intended this data to be used for accurate idle power consumption reporting.

Instead of TDP power data, why not have a look at the CPU Package temperature while playing a video. If your CPU fan runs at a consistent speed, the CPU temperature might be a more accurate measure of how much power the CPU is consuming.

SpeedStep needs to be enabled in the bios for ThrottleStop to work correctly. When you resume from sleep, it is possible that the bios is disabling SpeedStep and that might be leaving your CPU locked at a fixed multiplier. When you have a question, why not post some images of ThrottleStop so I can see how you have the program setup. What is the Non Turbo Ratio set to in the FIVR window? That should be set to 0 or it can block the Set Multiplier and Power Saver feature from working correctly.

When your CPU is fairly idle, post a screenshot of the C State window so I can see what C States are being used. If the deeper C States like C7 are working then using Power Saver to force your CPU down to 800 MHz might be consuming more power than it is saving. Modern CPUs run most efficiently when they can instantly get up to full speed when they have a task that needs to be completed and then immediately go back into C7 or a deeper C State when they have nothing to do. Forcing a CPU to plod along at a slow speed may not be the answer.

Power Optimization – a Reality Check
http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~krioukov/realityCheck.pdf

The C States are probably 1000 times faster at responding to changes in load compared to the Power Saver feature. Anytime you force your CPU to sit at 800 MHz when it has something to do, you are not doing it any favors. You are just making your laptop sluggish when it doesn't have to be.

Edit - One last thing. Are you using the Windows High Performance power profile with the Minimum processor state set to 100%? ThrottleStop will also not work correctly if you are using the Balanced profile or have the minimum set to something less than 100%.

When your CPU is idle and you open up the ThrottleStop C State window, are any of the C States being used like C3 / C6 / C7? It sounds like your board has decided to disable all of the important ones.

 

They are not being used at all. It might be my board. Even on 1.2ghz, this thing is sucking so much power. Not really an issue, just dont want massive heat to be dumped into my room in summer.

 

Hi, thank you for responding!

Originally I didn't want to post 'a wall of text', so I tried to go directly to the problem I'm actually having. But seems this raises a lot of questions as to what I am actually doing and why, so I'll try to explain everything from the beginning.

Oh, and I'm sure that the solution I have (force turbo + power saver) is not ideal, it just seems that this is the least bad option available to me.

Wall of text inbound!

(I'm not sure how to properly insert images here, so I'll just post links to Yandex disk where I have screenshots and stuff at the appropriate places; all screenshots and logs together can be seen here: https://yadi.sk/d/RxyW4fRGt3FvY )

So I've bought Dell Inspiron 7559 (if needed, here are specs more or less: http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-1..._ftsb_h5715e&model_id=inspiron-15-7559-laptop ). I need something that will let me work (programming) and play games to an extent -- this seems to fit the bill nicely for the price.

The important bit is probably CPU i5-6300HQ (Skylake) and that it has some version of Intel chipset on a custom Dell motherboard.

This laptop comes with Win10 and processor frequency control (SpeedStep, Turbo) work fine under Win10. However I want to use Win7 for various reasons, so I installed that. I managed to get all the drivers (Dell has most of them + internet search) so that everything works, no unknown devices etc.

However CPU is stuck at the constant speed under Win7. DackEW mentions the same thing above, so I think it's general problem for this configuration.

BIOS in this laptop barely has any options, so there's not much to try. It does have setting for SpeedStep, however under Win7 it has a funny effect -- 'Speedstep on' runs at constant 2.2Ghz, 'Speedstep off' runs at constant 2.3Ghz. Here's sample screenshot with 'Speedstep on':
https://yadi.sk/i/I-rGcBB_t3FYk
(regardless of CPU load, CPU clock stays at 2.2Ghz)

Running ThrottleStop I can see that Turbo and SpeedStep are supposed to be enabled -- however it still doesn't work, e.g.:
https://yadi.sk/i/bISJn2nXt3Fou

Power Options are set to High Performance (used to be Balanced) -- but it doesn't have any effect. In fact, there's simply no 'min/max processor state' in traditional place at all:
https://yadi.sk/i/JgMTWtfdt3Fq3

It does have Intel Thermal Framework stuff, but it doesn't seem to have any actual effect either, options are:
https://yadi.sk/i/fz2p8Uemt3Fr2

Now let's see what I can do with ThrottleStop. Force setting multiplier to 23 basically requests 'full turbo' at all times regardless of the load:
https://yadi.sk/i/_YsyIWjlt3Fry

However if I enable 'Power Saver' and set threshold to 13 the processor starts to behave in a way that approaches 'normal':
https://yadi.sk/i/CqHbAR4vt3FsA
(at idle/low load it stays in power saver somewhere between 0.8-1.2Ghz and goes up to full turbo under load)
This mode is not 100% ideal as under load CPU frequency seems to jump somewhat, sometimes dropping briefly to 2.6Ghz or some such, but it still seems the best option right now.

You asked about C-states at idle, so here they are:
https://yadi.sk/i/J98uTzIFt3Fv8
As you wrote above to DackEW: "It looks like your CPU is being limited to the Core C7 C state and the Package C2 C state so I doubt that it ever uses C8". It looks like I'm in the same boat. I also read somewhere (possibly in this very thread) that Dell has disabled C8 on these laptop (no idea whether that's true).


Now I'm more or less okay using 'full turbo + power saver' settings -- it seems to work pretty well. However, as I wrote in original post, it completely breaks after sleep/wake-up. Specifically it gets stuck in 'power saver' mode and never exits it regardless of CPU load:
https://yadi.sk/i/GoLrd-0Mt3FzE

I tried to switch profiles around, turn off/on power saver -- it doesn't seem to help. Turning 'power saver' off will run CPU at full turbo, however after turning it back on it is again stuck in 'power saver' only. I have no idea how this 'power saver' is implemented, but it almost as if CPU load monitoring 'breaks' and so the subroutine always thinks CPU is idle -- so no need to exit 'power saver' mode.

The only way to fix this I found is to close & restart ThrottleStop -- then everything is back to normal again.


Now to answer some more of the questions -- you asked about FIVR and 'Non Turbo Ratio'. It is set to 22 as you can see on screenshots. I tried to set it to 0 as you recommended and if I do so, then I indeed can control multiplier exactly (e.g. 24T, 25T and so on). However I prefer the mode where it auto-selects highest Turbo available, so I've kept 'Non Turbo Ratio' at 22 (thus when setting multiplier to 23 or higher it acts as 'turbo as much as possible' -- this is from observation).


And finally to address the question whether all of this is 'worth it'. You mentioned above that TDP figure may not be accurate/relevant to anything. This might be true (I really know very little about it). However I have no control over fans in this laptop (short on installing SpeedFan or something which I don't really want to mess around with), so monitoring CPU temperature is pretty much useless -- it fluctuates quite a bit and then at some point fans kick in. So TDP is about the only value I can try to monitor. Just in case this is relevant:
ThrottleStop logs of ~40 min video under 'power saver' show ~2.3W TDP:
https://yadi.sk/i/mqn9pMWlt3GFA
Same video under 'full turbo' settings ~4.3W TDP:
https://yadi.sk/i/6bhfIR3ct3GFu

However regardless of 'true' TDP I'm somewhat concerned about running unnecessarily high voltages on the chip when it is mostly idle. I think I've read somewhere that increased voltage may decrease the lifespan of CPU regardless of the actual temperature as it puts increased stress on gates or something? I'm not an electrical engineer at all


So, to summarize, there's an apparent bug in ThrottleStop that causes 'power saver' mode to get 'stuck on' after sleep/wake-up. I wonder if this is something that can be looked into? I'm willing to provide assistance if needed (e.g. run debug build with additional logs or something).

And, if I may be so greedy , it would be nice if ThrottleStop had an option to switch between profiles based on CPU load. E.g. if CPU exceeds X load for Y seconds then switch to profile P2, then if CPU is under X load for Z seconds, then switch back to profile P1. That way I could, for example, switch to a profile without 'power saver' under load to avoid 'frequency jumps' I mentioned above.


At any rate -- thanks for your time! I hope something can be done about the apparent bug, but it worst comes to worst I can probably rig some external script to force-restart ThrottleStop on wake up.

 

Any hope for higher core count support?

 

As soon as someone donates a XEON based platform to unclewebb.

 

8 core works fine.

 

As tgipier mentioned, 8 core CPUs work fine and I believe some time ago I read something about 10 core CPUs working as well so that should give additional peace of mind to any current and/or future high core count CPU users. It really is an astonishing software, highly recommended.