Turbo boost is supposed to boost the CPU speed within thermal limits, if only one core is in use but the thermal limit is not met then Turbo Boost will boost the CPU speed for short periods.
By trying to load all 4 cores you are most likely surpassing the thermal limit and thus preventing it from activating.
As per Wikipedia:
The increased clock rate is limited by the processor's power, current and thermal limits, as well as the number of cores currently in use and the maximum frequency of the active cores. When workload on the processor calls for faster performance, and the processor is below its limits, the processor's clock will increase the operating frequency in regular increments as required to meet demand. Frequency increases occur in increments of 133 MHz for Nehalem microarchitecture processors and 100 MHz for Sandy Bridge microarchitecture processors. When any of the electrical or thermal limits are reached, the operating frequency automatically decreases in decrements of 133 MHz/100 MHz until the processor is again operating within its design limits.
That Wikipedia page also shows some examples of Turbo Boost functioning and as more cores are in use the boosted speed is lower.
Try running only 1 worker thread and keeping your laptop as cool as you can, then Turbo Boost should activate.
Yes, 2.4GHz
vs 3.4GHz
is a big difference.
However you're comparing the same processor, and they're both capable of achieving 3.4GHz
. For the i7-4700MQ, 2.4Ghz
is the base speed and 3.4Ghz
is the turbo speed.
If the processors had otherwise different clock speeds (and all the other features were mostly the same), there would be a pretty big difference in their capability.
Note that there's other features of a processor that can out weigh small differences (ie 0.1 - 0.2Ghz
) in clock speed. Features like:
- the number of cores
- hyper-threading enabled
- cache sizes
will also affect the comparison between two processors.
Whether or not you would notice these differences also depends on what you're using the computer for. If you aren't using your computer for gaming, video/music rendering, or some other computationally-intensive task, the difference will mean very little to you.
Apart from the answer:
If you want a computer that performs well for general tasks (ie internet browsing, document editing, etc), get a computer with an SSD. Especially when you're buying a laptop, SSDs will increase battery like and drastically increase boot-time (and other drive-intensive operations). When it comes to general-purpose computing, SSDs make more of a difference than faster RAM and CPUs.
Not to judge your purchase, but both computers come with 1TB 5400RPM
drives - that is slow. Unless you actually need all that space, you will enjoy the capabilities of an SSD more.
And if you are looking to buy an HP laptop, do some research to make sure that none of the ports or internal parts are proprietary - HP is notorious for this.
Best Answer
Intel Turbo Boost only boosts the speed if the processor is not fully utilized. Their site is pretty vague on details, but I remember seeing that it's designed for when one core is being maxed out while the other cores are sitting idle. If you're using multiple cores, the processor is drawing too much power, or the processor is too hot, then Intel Turbo Boost will turn off and the processor will return to it's normal maximum speed.
All cores will technically be running at the full speed, but you can't utilize all the cores at the same time while boosted or the processor will return to the normal maximum.