My i5-7600 base clock speed seems too high

[chctulc]

I have a i5-7600 (non-K) on an Asus H110M-E/M.2 motherboard. (3.5 GHz/4.1GHz) Running Win 10 set to high performance mode, the CPU never seems to drop to 3500MHz when idle. Even when all 4 cores are at 0.x% usage, the lowest any core's multi seems to drop to is 3.8 for 38xx MHz. Of course, setting the power to balanced mode allows the multi to drop appreciably as one would expect. But I always assumed the the base clock speed of 3500 MHz would be what I would see at idle, not 3800 MHz. Not that I'm complaining, you understand. Just curious as to why that is.

I attached screenshot from HWMon. Notice that no core's multi drops below 38 even at idle. One core is even at turbo mode. Is this normal? When would I expect to see a multi of 35?

Turbo mode seems to work as expected.

 

[cadaveca]

I have a i5-7600 (non-K) on an Asus H110M-E/M.2 motherboard. (3.5 GHz/4.1GHz) Running Win 10 set to high performance mode, the CPU never seems to drop to 3500MHz when idle. Even when all 4 cores are at 0.x% usage, the lowest any core's multi seems to drop to is 3.8 for 38xx MHz. Of course, setting the power to balanced mode allows the multi to drop appreciably as one would expect. But I always assumed the the base clock speed of 3500 MHz would be what I would see at idle, not 3800 MHz. Not that I'm complaining, you understand. Just curious as to why that is.

I attached screenshot from HWMon. Notice that no core's multi drops below 38 even at idle. One core is even at turbo mode. Is this normal? When would I expect to see a multi of 35?

Turbo mode seems to work as expected.
View attachment 84550

Yes, it is normal. You'd only actually see 3500 with Turbo disabled. Turbo's function is to provide the best core speed based on workload. Idle process, while not a lot of work, is still a process, so it causes high clockspeed in KabyLake platform on most motherboards. This allows the CPU to respond to first task from idle as quickly as possible, since there is less time waiting for clock speed changes.

I noticed this right away as well, but I do tend to also test idle power consumption over the 8-pin (so, CPU only), and even with the "elevated" idle clocks, power consumption by the CPU is very low; 2-4W. Reducing clockspeed does not have much of an impact, if any, on this idle power consumption number, especially since we are talking about only a few hundred MHz.

 

[FR@NK]

Using high performance power plan will keep the CPU running at high speeds. Adjust the processor power management in the power plan if you want the speeds to drop at idle.

 

[chctulc]

Thank you cadaveca, good answer. Now I understand.
Is this typical with previous i5s too, or just with kaby Lake?

 

[eidairaman1]

Typical of all turbo cpus

 

[kn00tcn]

i dont understand why people dont use balanced, at the very least people should have actual benchmarks or anecdotal 'it stuttered on balanced' stories (edit the profile to keep hard drive on or sleep disabled of course)

now when you edit the power plan settings, you can see there is a cpu freq min/max value that you can control

i thought idle drops below the base & that base is for all cores loaded but without thermal or power headroom

my base is 2.2ghz up to 3.1 turbo, when i start a video encode i have all 4 cores at like 2.8ghz, then they drop to 2.5ghz when i'm hanging around 90 degrees for some time, but idle is 800mhz if i remember

 

[basco]

does the h110 chipset have the bios option multicore enhancement?

 

[chctulc]

does the h110 chipset have the bios option multicore enhancement?

Unless I just can't find it, I don't see it under the Ai Tweaker or the Advanced sections. What does it do?

 

[TRWOV]

Normal Turbo functionality.

 

[basco]

its for running all cores on max turbo frenzy instead of intel standard turbo