FPS tip for Intel speedstep CPUs

AussieKid · August 2012

Intel speedstep is technology which automatically changes the speed of your CPU depending upon the situation, this technology is designed to save on power consumption and heat generation when your PC is not doing intensive tasks. I have an Intel i5 2500K and have found that turning off speedstep and turbo-boost in my BIOS has resulted in a more consistent FPS overall in-game. The difference for me was quite dramatic where I used to get down to 10-15 fps in heavy combat situations, I now sit in the 20-30 fps range. I can't guarantee this will have the safe effect for others but thought it was worth mentioning here.

Note: Please be very very careful before attempting to change anything in your BIOS settings.

ScardyBob · August 2012

This is a bit counterintuitive, because disabling speedstep should, in theory, lower performance since you are not getting the boost to the highest clockspeed. I'm curious
- Are you overclocking?
- Can you try running the benchmark shown in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=119506" target="_blank">this thread</a> with speedstep on/off?

Jonp_11 · August 2012

Interesting, I have an i5-650 I might have to try it. I read before that disabling speedstep wouldn't have much of a performance increase in general for gaming, not that I deny yours. I have power options set on High Performance which I thought would have the same effect, given that it's supposed to keep your CPU state at 100%.

I just wonder how did you get your benchmark? It seems like trying to benchmark a multiplayer game could be very inaccurate due to so many factors.

ScardyBob · August 2012

Most games are bottlenecked by the GPU power, so speedsteps extra CPU power does little. However, NS2 is usually (though not always) bottlenecked by the CPU, which is why the speedstep can help.

The benchmark is not a 'true' benchmark (because we're not keeping everything constant), but its a useful measure of what people are actually experiencing in-game.

deathmonger · August 2012

Speedstep is like AMD's cool 'n quiet - it drops your processor speed down to 1.6GHz under a light load. Now turbo boost gives you an extra boost under especially taxing situations--if you haven't overclocked your CPU then I recommend keeping that enabled. But you can definitely disable speedstep without losing any benefits other than less power consumption when you don't really need all of that processing power.

AussieKid · August 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Aug 9 2012, 02:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1959879"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>This is a bit counterintuitive, because disabling speedstep should, in theory, lower performance since you are not getting the boost to the highest clockspeed. I'm curious
- Are you overclocking?
- Can you try running the benchmark shown in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=119506" target="_blank">this thread</a> with speedstep on/off?</div>

- No overclocking, stock speeds on both the cpu and gfx.
- benchmark results:

In both tests below, intel turbo boost was set to disabled. I have not yet done any benchmarking to see if turbo boost makes a difference, this primarily shows the difference between intel speedstep settings.

<span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><span style="color:#FFFF00">
Test 1: Intel Speedstep <span style="color:#FF0000">ON</span>, ns2_summit, 16 to 18 players, marine
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500k @ 3.3Ghz
Ping: ~70ms
GPU: ASUS GTX580 Direct CU II @ 782/1576/4008
OS: Windows 7 Professional, 64 Bit
DISK: OCZ SSD
RAM: 16GB, 1600mhz
Minimum FPS: 4
Maximum FPS: 102</span>
<span style="color:#FF0000">Average FPS: 30.752</span>
<span style="color:#FFFF00">Build: 216
Resolution: 1280 x 800, high, all options on.
</span></span>

<span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><span style="color:#FFFF00">
Test 2: Intel Speedstep <span style="color:#FF0000">OFF</span>, ns2_summit, 16 to 18 players, marine
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500k @ 3.3Ghz
Ping: ~70ms
GPU: ASUS GTX580 Direct CU II @ 782/1576/4008
OS: Windows 7 Professional, 64 Bit
DISK: OCZ SSD
RAM: 16GB, 1600mhz
Minimum FPS: 20
Maximum FPS: 101</span>
<span style="color:#FF0000">Average FPS: 48.605</span>
<span style="color:#FFFF00">Build: 216
Resolution: 1280 x 800, high, all options on.
</span></span>

Dghelneshi · August 2012

Did you make a playthrough before the benchmark to precache stuff in case that's what's causing the 4fps slowdowns? If that's not it, this is a really mysterious issue.

ScardyBob · August 2012

Oh wow, that's a big difference. Does this mean that speedstep is sometimes throttling down while NS2 is running?

AussieKid · August 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Aug 10 2012, 06:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1960456"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Did you make a playthrough before the benchmark to precache stuff in case that's what's causing the 4fps slowdowns? If that's not it, this is a really mysterious issue.</div>

No I didn't, this is a good idea though and would give us more accurate results. I might do this before I start the next benchmarks for the turbo boost settings.

AussieKid · August 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Aug 10 2012, 02:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1960697"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Oh wow, that's a big difference. Does this mean that speedstep is sometimes throttling down while NS2 is running?</div>

I don't want to draw that conclusion yet which is why I'm curious to see if anyone else gets similar results to me.

kamup · August 2012

Well, I tested that on my laptop and in my case I lose about 5-10 fps with speedstep disabled. For me works better with speedstep ON ( 30 fps VS 20 fps OFF ), also there's no turbo-boost option in my bios.

ScardyBob · August 2012

I'm a bit surprised that speedstep has an effect either way actually. In theory, shouldn't it only slow down the CPU during low power applications (i.e. idling)?

Dghelneshi · August 2012

Windows Performance Monitor offers ways of monitoring sleep states and CPU frequency (not the Turbo Boost frequency though). It's a bit of a pain to set it up, but I've played NS2 with it running and saw nothing strange. Frequency was at maximum all the time, no matter whether I set windows to handle core affinity or set it to only use the first to cores. I still have to test this without SpeedStep to compare the sleep states as I'm not well versed in their meaning (C3 hovered around 50%, rest was near 0).

jkenny · July 2016

AussieKid wrote: »

Intel speedstep is technology which automatically changes the speed of your CPU depending upon the situation, this technology is designed to save on power consumption and heat generation when your PC is not doing intensive tasks. I have an Intel i5 2500K and have found that turning off speedstep and turbo-boost in my BIOS has resulted in a more consistent FPS overall in-game. The difference for me was quite dramatic where I used to get down to 10-15 fps in heavy combat situations, I now sit in the 20-30 fps range. I can't guarantee this will have the safe effect for others but thought it was worth mentioning here.

Note: Please be very very careful before attempting to change anything in your BIOS settings.

Dude Im from the future, xD, i just register here to thank you very much. This tip helped me a lot, i think it was the last choice/option to try to improve FPS on my laptop and i can tell you that I love you man. Thank you very much. It works for me with my Intel Core i5 2450m.

IronHorse · August 2016

In general, you want to disable speedstep unless you are mobile and gaming (to save battery life)
You especially want to disable it if you are overclocking.

snb · August 2016

IronHorse wrote: »

In general, you want to disable speedstep unless you are mobile and gaming (to save battery life)
You especially want to disable it if you are overclocking.

Why? I don't want my CPU to be at 4.6 GHz permanently.

Vivisector · August 2016

Huh. Maybe I should try it out. My FPS is all over the place.

vartija · August 2016

snb wrote: »

IronHorse wrote: »

In general, you want to disable speedstep unless you are mobile and gaming (to save battery life)
You especially want to disable it if you are overclocking.

Why? I don't want my CPU to be at 4.6 GHz permanently.

It's more stable when disabled. (=more Hz!)

snb · August 2016

Just tried it. There's no noticable difference.

There would be on my electricity bill, though, if I kept it.

vartija · August 2016

You nee also push that sweet voltage! But if you are not going all the way I think it's fine to keep it.

FPS tip for Intel speedstep CPUs

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