Speedstep and Turboboost not working on my MacbookPro mid 2012

Just to say I'm using CPU-Z and Intel Turboboost Monitor in windows to display the CPU speed in realtime. If I boot in bootcamp, the CPU speed changes according to the CPU load, if I start the same bootcamp install in Paralllels, CPU speed is stuck at 2.9GHz. I have also tried Intel MacCPUID to display the speed in OS X, and it's stuck to 2.9GHz (assuming it's refreshed in real time).

So no one has any idea why speedstep and turboboost do not seem to work on OS X while they work fine in Windows 7?

Thanks for the reply.

I only mentionned Parallels because it allowed me to run the same tools as in bootcamp. There is no option to adjust the speed of the CPU in the power management profiles in parallels, so I supposed it's because it leaves it to the host OS, which makes sense.

The only tool I could find to display the CPU frequency in real time in OS X Lion is MacCPUID (http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/download-maccpuid/). It's an old tool, but it detects the CPU correctly and displays the right frequency:

It doesn't update it in real-time, but as you can see it has a button to recalculate the frequency, so you can check if it changes or not depending on the CPU load.

If you still believe it might not be accurate (I have no reasons not to believe it isn't) and have any tool to suggest, you're welcome. I've tried everything (iStat Pro, CPU-X, and similar), and couldn't find a tool that worked on Lion and the new Macbook. The tools either didn't work on Lion or could not display the CPU frequency, only the CPU load.

Yes, as I said, it is a bit old, but it works fine.

I have no idea where you get the MHz from. On the screenshot I attached, you can see it says 2.9GHz for the processor native speed (which is correct) and 2,900,000Hz for the real-time speed, which is correct again. Yes, I also mentioned in my former post that you had to click the button to refresh the real-time speed.

There is no user parameters that I know off which would prevent the CPU from throttling down (there doesn't seem to be any way to adjust this in the Mac OS control panel). And I have put full load on the CPU with various tasks, it never moves (up or down) from 2.9GHz.

I have also tried Ministat2 (http://download.cnet.com/mac/shockwidgets-com/3260-20_4-10030711.html) which does display the CPU frequency in real-time (if you set it up properly) but it doesn't move from 2.9GHz.

So as far as I'm concerned speedstep and turboboost don't work on the new Macbook pros.

If you know of a way to confirm or deny this, please provide it.

Thanks, I'm aware of this which is why I chose tasks which unlike handbrake load one CPU and not the other. A simple way to do this is to load a VM in Paralllels configured to use only one CPU, and start a CPU intensive task in the VM. If the virtual CPU is maxed in the VM, one real CPU should be turboboosted in the host, but it isn't. In any case, this doesn't explain why Speedstep doesn't seem to be working either.

Anandtech used to check this with MSR Tools, but it's not compatible with the new Macs and Anad was very vague in his review of the Retina MBP. He said he had tested this, but he didn't say how.

I'm confused and amazed that no one seems to be checking this in their Macbooks. It's a basic feature, and a real problem if it doesn't work.

You are correct, my apologies. But the processor type/frequency and model is correctly detected, and other utilities confirm this, so it must be a display bug (I think I would have noticed if my Mac was running at 2.9MHz:)!).

In any case, all this means that either no one is interested in knowing if speedstep/turboboost is working as it should in the new Macbook pros with Lion, or no one knows how to check this.

I have filed a bug report with Apple, but I'm not holding my breath.

Thanks for your help everyone.

Okay, I have found a more recent utility updated for the latest MBP, which supports all the new Macbooks.

It's called Hardware Monitor, and it is very well made. V4.96 released on the 25/06/12 can be downloaded here:

http://www.bresink.de/osx/HardwareMonitor.html. There is a free evaluation version which includes all the features for a limited amount of time.

This utility correctly detects the CPU in my MBP, and even the max Turboboost depending on the number of cores used:

It is also displays both the nominal frequency (2.9GHz) and the real-time frequency, which in my case is also stuck at 2.9GHz even if I load one CPU to the max, which suggests that Speedstep and Turboboost are not enabled.

I tried to reset the PRAM and the SMC, which didn't make any difference. My install of OS X is a clean install.

I would be very interested if other Macbook owners could try this utility and report their findings.

In the meantime I have written to the developper, hoping he will have an expalnation.

Thanks Shootist007. It seems to be a bit more complicated than this.

I have just received a reply from Marcel Breisik, the developper of Hardware Monitor (that's what I call great support, and I had not even bought the software yet!) and here are his answers:

--- start quote

> I have installed the latest demo version of Hardware Monitor (4.96) and it seems to work fine. However, it doesn't seem to be able to display the CPU frequency change in real-time due to Speedstep or Turboboost action. The clock frequency is stuck at 2.9GHz, the nominal frequency.

This is the intended behavior for Hardware Monitor when running on Intel Core i processors.

A live update of the CPU clock frequency is only supported via artificial software sensors provided by Hardware Monitor for certain PowerPC systems, and the first generation of Intel Core Solo and Core Duo processors.

> I have checked in Windows/Bootcamp with CPU-Z or Intel Turboboost Monitor, and in Win7 the frequency changes as expected between 1GHz when idle to 3.6GHz when one core is under max load and the others are on idle.

The System Information window is not designed to be updated in real-time. Unfortunately, it is generally impossible to determine actual "live" frequency values for TurboBoost when running Mac OS X.

The Mac OS X kernel intentionally blocks the use of certain processor features which are needed to compute the current frequency. You would need to replace the OS kernel or run other operating systems to get such values.

> I am of course assuming that Speedstep and Turboboost are enabled in 10.7.4 (Lion), but I have no way to confirm this.

Hardware Monitor can basically confirm this if you have enabled its sensor driver for extended x86 monitoring. After that, the TurboBoost frequency support table will become visible when pressing the "More info" button in the System Overview window.

--- end quote

So it looks like Turboboost is enabled but the CPU frequency can't be displayed in real-time on recent Macbooks.

I have asked for a confirmation that as long as you can display the Turboboost info in Hardware Monitor, it means that the feature is actually enabled in the OS (and HM doesn't just display generic info derived from the CPU type/model), but assuming it is the former it looks like it's just OS X which is preventing from reading the info, not the feature which is disabled.

Anyway, great software and great support, so I'm buying it even if it can't display the CPU speed in real-time...

Final reply from Marcel Breisik, developper of Hardware Monitor following my request for a confirmation:

> To your knowledge, does OSX Lion use speedstep/Turboboost to optimize battery life/performance, or does it lock the CPU speed to the nominal speed?

Mac OS X fully supports SpeedStep (EIST) and TurboBoost. This is officially advertized by Apple.

If the CPU is capable of providing these features, they will be used.

> When I launch a sysctl -a in terminal, it says that cpumin=cpuspeed=cpumax, so it looks like everything is locked in the kernel, at least for the outside world.

The kernel does not reflect the true CPU speed. Otherwise, applications like Hardware Monitor could just communicate with the kernel to get the reading you are interested in.

> Another way to phrase this is, if I get the correct max turboboost speed in the extented x86 monitoring (please see attached screenshot), does it mean that turboboost is enabled and working in OS X Lion, or is it just the info related to the installed CPU model?

The TurboBoost table is read directly off the processor. As far as is known, Mac OS X does never disable TurboBoost, so this would confirm that TurboBoost is working.

---- end quote

It's nice to finally have a precise answer to these questions.

Thanks to all who helped getting to the bottom of this...