You know, this is an interesting academic discussion.
But honestly, I don't really care if Windows says I have only one half of one core, or a bajillion cores, because all that ultimately matters is how the system performs in applications and games that I am currently using. If it takes 12,080 cores or 1 core, to get to a performance level that I'm happy with, then other than it being somewhat interesting I don't really care and I'm happy.
Kinda one of the reasons I'm still running that over-aged 1090T in my system. Though I do start to feel the performance drop with more modern (MMO) games that I play - certainly with the GTX970 alongside causing the CPU to become a bottleneck...
You know I am starting to wonder about how my cpu is being turbo boosted. Its an i7 and being boosted when its ony at 20% load. Which makes me think its only using 2 cores and 4 threads. By that information alone it looks like HT is not being disabled for the sake of load but instead pushed harder. Unless my system is buggy and that is possible.
It's very common for motherboards, particularly "gaming" oriented, to implement their own turbo clocks (which is, technically, overclocking), and for those settings to be "default" rather than stock CPU settings. A very common overclock is to just set your CPU to run at the Turbo speed all the time, and most of the time, that's a safe bump.
But there is always the option to get back to stock settings, those that are actually recommended by the manufacturer.
If your looking at clock speed and the way Turbo is supposed to work, it's actually not supposed to boost at all while under heavy, high core count load. It's only supposed to turbo if temperature is low enough, TDP is low enough, and your core count is under a specific threshold. Under heavy load, it's supposed to just run at the base clock speed.
It's very common for motherboards, particularly "gaming" oriented, to implement their own turbo clocks (which is, technically, overclocking), and for those settings to be "default" rather than stock CPU settings. A very common overclock is to just set your CPU to run at the Turbo speed all the time, and most of the time, that's a safe bump.
But there is always the option to get back to stock settings, those that are actually recommended by the manufacturer.
If your looking at clock speed and the way Turbo is supposed to work, it's actually not supposed to boost at all while under heavy, high core count load. It's only supposed to turbo if temperature is low enough, TDP is low enough, and your core count is under a specific threshold. Under heavy load, it's supposed to just run at the base clock speed.
Sadly enough the temperature threshold for a laptop cpu's is +200F. So boosting it at all for the most part is just bad for laptops.
The temperature setpoint is a hardware function, above which the silicon performs differently, which in mild cases will just cause errors. Yes, this is normally somewhere around 180F-210F. No matter what the temperature or the boost, the CPU still won't exceed it's TDP for significant periods of time, so proper cooling designed for the TDP should always be able to maintain a certain temperature, because temperature is just a function of power in (TDP) and power out (cooling).
The fact that you are hitting that temperature isn't a problem from Intel or with Turbo. It's because of the cooling: either the laptop cheaped out on the cooling, or is dirty, or has a failing fan, or your sitting with the vents clogged.
The temperature setpoint is a hardware function, above which the silicon performs differently, which in mild cases will just cause errors. Yes, this is normally somewhere around 180F-210F. No matter what the temperature or the boost, the CPU still won't exceed it's TDP for significant periods of time, so proper cooling designed for the TDP should always be able to maintain a certain temperature, because temperature is just a function of power in (TDP) and power out (cooling).
The fact that you are hitting that temperature isn't a problem from Intel or with Turbo. It's because of the cooling: either the laptop cheaped out on the cooling, or is dirty, or has a failing fan, or your sitting with the vents clogged.
If its running at 180 which is considered normal operating temp then how is there a cooling problem? The problem is how turbo boost handles it. Sadly some laptops will see as much as 40degree fluctuations in the cpu temp. They have what is considered normal operating temperature and so long as the cpu is under that temperature it will continue to boost the cpu. Now even though its a normal operating temp it does not mean that the user wants the computer running that hot. So doing something to prevent this situation isn't something that the software considers necessary. It is the user who thinks it is necessary.
Sadly I'm finding the only laptop of mine that has turboboost is constantly pushed to 160-180f unneccessarily. Which is why I disabled it and its no longer being pushed to those levels any more. Those temps are considered normal by the manufacturer and windows but its unacceptable to me who is forced to feel the heat first hand.
180 for the CPU is "fine" as far as Intel is concerned, and probably as far as MSI is concerned as well. It's just you that think's it's too hot (and I admit, if I had that laptop sitting in my lap, I would agree that it's uncomfortable, but it's well within the specifications for the CPU). If you think that's too hot, then either you need to adjust the cooling, or maybe you shouldn't have bought that particular laptop.
Fluctuations in temperature on the CPU are normal too. They ~should~ fluctuate anywhere from ambient temp all the way up to something short of their temperature limit. That's more than a 100F delta that is possible, and perfectly normal.
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But there is always the option to get back to stock settings, those that are actually recommended by the manufacturer.
If your looking at clock speed and the way Turbo is supposed to work, it's actually not supposed to boost at all while under heavy, high core count load. It's only supposed to turbo if temperature is low enough, TDP is low enough, and your core count is under a specific threshold. Under heavy load, it's supposed to just run at the base clock speed.
The fact that you are hitting that temperature isn't a problem from Intel or with Turbo. It's because of the cooling: either the laptop cheaped out on the cooling, or is dirty, or has a failing fan, or your sitting with the vents clogged.
Sadly I'm finding the only laptop of mine that has turboboost is constantly pushed to 160-180f unneccessarily. Which is why I disabled it and its no longer being pushed to those levels any more. Those temps are considered normal by the manufacturer and windows but its unacceptable to me who is forced to feel the heat first hand.
Fluctuations in temperature on the CPU are normal too. They ~should~ fluctuate anywhere from ambient temp all the way up to something short of their temperature limit. That's more than a 100F delta that is possible, and perfectly normal.