question about the Mac Pro Turbo Boost: dynamic performance technology

Hi,

have a look here http://www.intel.com/technology/turboboost/

Regards

Stefan

but the real question is? does osx uses that feature ?
how can i check if it really auto-overclock my cores when others are not in use ?
looking at processor usage in istats menu it looks like all core are always in use, does it really works?
is there an utility to check core frequency on osx?
also no bios options in mac pros about turbo boost,well... no bios options at all on mac pros!!
I consider this a very important feature that is missing on mac pros, i think if there is a bios, they would sell much more machines, a serious windows user wants a configurable BIOS 😝

Yes the new Mac Pros use the feature. See the paragraph titled 'Power when (and where) you need it' in the below link:

http://www.apple.com/macpro/features/processor.html

Thanks for the link, so on the paper is working.. how can i check when is working inside osx ?

Based on the tests i've done osx is NOT able to turn off processors automatically when they are not in use, so Turbo Boost never activates.
It will probably works only with bootcamp and windows, but i haven't tested yet.

Basically we have bought an overpriced machine that is also castrated.

Please prove me that is not true.

FYI i'm on 10.5.8

I'd be interested in how you conducted your test. Basically you need to boot from a pretty bare bones system install. Make sure as many services as possible are turned off so as not to increase system load any more than necessary. Then run one processor intensive non-threaded application and monitor processor speed.

Alternatively, if you have Developer Tools loaded, you could turn off all cores except one and turn off hyper-threading (using the Processor preference pane) to conduct the testing.

Ok i'll show you the last test i've just done.
I have just installed osx 10.6.2 on a fresh new hard disk and updated everything to the lastest version
I 've tested encoding a 800MB wav to mp3 using LAME mp3 encoder, that is a single thread application
I'm using also "processor" and "cpupalette" taken from the xcode tools.

Look at the image there are 4 tests conescutively.

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/8743/img1a.png

First encoding is done with everything default, 4cpu + hyperthread
Second encoding is done with HT off
Third one is with HT off and only 2 CPU active
Fourth one is with HT off and 1 CPU only

What we can understand for now?
1-single threaded applications works better when hyperthreading is off, and we all already know that.
2 -running with only 2 cpus instead of 4 does not affect performance
3 -running with only 1 cpu get even worst results (that is normal cause in the same cpu there are also system tasks)
4 - There are no changes in performance even if i disable CPUs manually.

So basically until now we can only say that
1-Turbo boost is always working
2-Turbo boost is never working

So to demonstarte that Turbo Boost isn't working i've done another test.
I've launched 4 tasks of LAME simultaneously (well, i have to press enter 4 times so it's not exactly simultaneously 🙂 )
here are the results:

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6264/img2c.png

As you can see the encoder took about 4 seconds more to encode, but it's due to the fact that HD is working 4th times more, and also L2 cache , RAM and bus are shared so it's normal that 4 tasks take a bit longer than just 1.
There are 2 results in the window, the first with HT, the second without.

What we can deduce now? we have 2 options:
1-Turbo Boost is working but the performance improvement is very very low (i don't believe that!)
2 - TURBO BOOST IS NOT WORKING, yeah, that's the right one!!!

So my dear Apple you have 2 options now:

1 - FIX IT!!!
2 - remove all false advertising you have on your papers.

There is still a test to do, does anyone has bootcamp ?
If anyone can check if that feature is working on a bootcamped windows, it's quite easy to check, even on Intel website there are some tools.

So we can identify if it's an hardware limitation, or an OSX missing feature.
I hope for the second!!!

I have done more tests in 10.5.x with some audio applications including Logic.
All tests confirm that Turbo Boost it's just a dream on osx.

Finally, i really can't understand how anyone has noticed it after nearly 1 YEAR, what the **** you do with your mac other than wanking on youporn and spamming on facebook ???
By the way the lack of any benchmark and monitoring tool on OSX does not help.

Please fell free to demonstrate that i'm wrong, i'll be very happy if i'm wrong, by the way for the application i use daily for my work it looks like it does NOT work. hope it works for you.

Regards....

i've found some valuable informations about turbo boost and my processor
CPU X5570
Speed 2,93 Ghz
Max Speed 3,33 Ghz
Max Speed 4 core busy 3,2 Ghz
L3 8mb
Power 95w

i've read also:

Notice that the fastest 95W parts are able to boost their frequency with two 133MHz increments even if all four cores are busy. In reality, we have noticed that with most business workloads a 2.93GHz Xeon X5570 is running at 3.066 most of the time and from time to time even at 3.2GHz, but relatively rarely at 2.93GHz. In other words, you get a bit more clock speed than advertised. In rendering we noticed that peaking at 3.2GHz was rather rare, so the workload really determines how high the CPU will clock.

So that could be the reason ? so turbo boost is always on ?
By the way i should get higher performance when i use only 1 task

/confused

Another FYI for the discussion: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3597&p=7

thanks for the link...
by the way, unless we have a tool to check what's really happening at CPU and what is its frequency when we are in OSX, everything is just pure speculation

and for the happiness of mac pro nehalem owners here is another test!!!!

this is again a proof that turbo boost isn't working at all.

again i can't say it for sure, cause it should be vmware that doesn't recognize cpu frequency changes, but considering that the cpu is virtualized i highly doubt it's wrong.

basically i've installed a win xp over vmware, i have assigned ony 1 core to it, then i've launched rightmark, that checks cpu load and frequency every second, and then i've launched a superpi calculation while osx was nearly idle (only cpupalette running)

there are NO changes of the cpu frquency for the whole calculation, and cpu usage is stuck at 100% here's the picture:

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9513/immagine8t.png

there are very slight changes in frequency readings (a couple of megabytes), so that means rightmark is currently measuring cpu frequency over time correctly.

As you can see osx is continuously changing cpu workload between the various cpus, instead of turning unused ones off and pushing up frequency of the others.

So.. all the test i've done demonstrates that turbo boost isn't working and no tests demonstrates the opposite, now everyone can link all the websites they wants speaking about TB technology, but numbers are numbers, and words are words.

i think their kernel just doesn't supports that (like some linux distro).
i'm still waiting for a counter proof.

i've lost 6 hours tonight trying to install bootcamp to test if Turbo Boost is working on a bootcamped windows, tried xp, vista, win7x64 and win7x86, it looks like all windows doesn't like the 2 pro-tools hd cards i have inside the mac + the motu pcie 424, everytime it looks or it installs something related to pci (like intel chipset) it justs hangs or give bsod and broke the entire installation.

So... fantastic, it's the second missing feature in one week (unless i dismount all of my internal pcie cards, i can do it once for testing purpouse, but it's just impossible to do it for a daily use, so i just can't use boot camp, i don't need it also, but this is not an excuse, it should works anyway).

By the way i've found proofs browsing on the net that TB IS WORKING on bootcamped windows, so it's an osx problem, not hardware related.

that's all, so you still believe you have turbo boosts on osx ? i don't 🙂

For Windows monitoring there is Intel Turbo Boost utility. Haven't tried it yet. Of course no help for Mac OS.
----

Intel® Turbo Boost Technology Monitor is a Windows Sidebar gadget which provides simple display of increase in processor frequency when applications request and Intel Turbo Boost Technology delivers more performance.

Supported Processors
Intel® Core™ i7 processor
Intel® Core™ i7 processor extreme edition
Intel® Core™i7 mobile processor
Intel® Core™i7 mobile processor extreme edition
Intel® Core™ i5 processor

Supported Operating Systems
Microsoft Windows Vista* 32bit & 64-bit editions with Service Pack 1 & 2.
Microsoft Windows 7* 32bit & 64bit editions.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18353

i have just tried it..
i've successfully installed win 7 over boot camp (after having removed all pci card from the mac.. what a pain, a day lost to make it works)

i don't want to screenshot by the way when is idle cpu is at 1596 mhz..
i've doublechecked also with cpu-z
when is under workload it goes to 3,06 Ghz, so it's a bit higher than the standard.

BTW it always goes to that frequency, even if i use all 8 cpus, i've never seen the cpu going at 2,93, it switches the multiplier between 12x in idle and 23x when is under load, never seen at 3,2 ghz aswell.

it just switch between 12x and 23x, regardless on how many cpu are in use.

Well i don't call it exactly turbo boost even this one, but anyway is better than nothing (osx).

I guess that both EFI and osx kernel should be revised.

Message was edited by: tigerman