Turbo Boost to full potential

The Intel Power Gadget app reports temperatures. What is it showing? Can you please post screenshots of what you’re seeing?

So, that indicates your CPU’s and cores are working about as expected. The software is probably not 100% optimized for Mac and the core average is 4.65 which is very good. Core utilization is low, because games rely on the GPU for maximum frame rates etc. Core temps are high, but not really being throttled.

You can check the GPU performance by now looking at the Apple Activity Monitor in the Utilities Folder and clicking the CPU tab and then looking over at the %GPU column and verifying your GPU is near 100%. Please post a screen shot of the Activity Monitor screen.

The apps you use will be automatically be optimized to use your computer's potential. You cannot force the system or an app to do so, the developers of the apps you use do that for you. You may have over purchased for your needs, if you are a 3D gamer, do 3D renderings, music production or video production those are some of the primary uses of CPU performance.

You have done no harm by over buying though and given the choice it is always smarter to over purchase than under purchase.

The other possibility is that due to fluctuations in CPU build quality that neither you, nor Apple have control over, Intel's advertised turbo boost for these particular CPUs in your iMac, are simply incapable of reaching 5.0 Ghz. Or the right conditions to achieve 5.0 Ghz simply have not happened. Or Intel's Power Gadget is not reporting the instantaneous turbo boost that is occurring while in your game.

I would believe by now, that X-Plane 11 would be more dependent on the compatible GPU that you have, then pure CPU performance, but the last time I ran X-Plane was on an SGI workstation.

At any rate, there is a 14-day return policy, and after that, I agree with rkaufmann87. You can place a fish aquarium full of ice behind the iMac, and it won't make a hill of difference. You may need a water cooled, dedicated PC gaming platform instead of the iMac.

Most “games” rely on the GPU for rendering, resolutions and FPS performance. What GPU and graphics memory does your iMac have?

Thanks for sharing the screenshot. From the very brief screenshot/performance glimpse it would appear to me to be a software issue with the developer.

It would be beneficial to capture a much longer time frame, but looking at what we’ve got, it could be a potential thermal issue. The cores are very near 100c. A longer snapshot might show throttling as the cores heated up.

In my opinion it doesn’t look like an issue with the CPUs. But temps near 100c will cause at least a temporary slowing of performance as the cores heat up.

If you would provide a complete graph, I could better diagnose the issue.

At the risk of asking what might be obvious, y’all are aware that Intel Turbo Boost is a sprint, quite possibly only a short sprint, and not a sustained clock speed, right?

The availability of the boost speed is limited by available processor cooling and processor electrical consumption; by other activity occurring within the core.

Expect to get the base clock speed. Not boost clock speed. Boost is a bonus.

If you could get the boost clock speed as the sustained speed, that speed would then be known as the base clock speed rating and not the boost clock speed.

Per Intel, Ice Lake processors allow separate clock speeds across the cores, but the power and thermal budgets are shared across all cores and also include the power and heat associated with the GPU activity. Put differently, graphics-intensive gaming probably isn’t going to boost all that much.

Here’s a fairly detailed article: https://www.anandtech.com/show/14514/examining-intels-ice-lake-microarchitecture-and-sunny-cove