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Image of CPU according to WRM and Task Manager:

enter image description here

The above image is what WRM reports my Max Frequency to be of my CPU.

Why is it so high, and also why is the Speed on task manager higher than the 3.40GHz I assume to be the normal maximum?

As far as I know I've done nothing to overclock etc.

DavidPostill
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Guu1
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  • Your CPU has a boost frequency. Its also possible you are overclocking your CPU without your knowlege. Based on the information you have provided I can't say one way or another. – Ramhound May 10 '16 at 15:19
  • @Ramhound Thanks for your infor, would you happen to know how I would check if Im unknowingly overclocking? Also given that the computer is effectively idle, how concerned should I be by the fact this "maximum frequency" seems to be always around the 100% mark? Is the "maximum frequency" a report on the actual maximum potential frequency (if so, why does it keep changing?)? i'm concerned that it might instead by something about consistent usage and therefore something is intensively using the cpu (and/or fudging the reporting) – Guu1 May 10 '16 at 15:24
  • I don't have enough information to help you determine that. – Ramhound May 10 '16 at 15:29
  • i7-3770 has a max turbo frequency of 3.9GHz on a single core, sounds overclocked to me – Richie Frame May 10 '16 at 16:08
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    CPU utilisation does not necessarily have any relation to CPU max frequency (in those screenshots utilisation seems to be very low, as it should be when idle). Power management might do some things which affect the max frequency, but there's no need to drop that when the CPU is idle, as the max is the maximum _potential_ frequency, not the maximum used frequency within some time interval... – zagrimsan May 18 '16 at 06:05
  • Related: [What does the “Maximum Frequency” number mean in the Windows Resource Monitor?](https://superuser.com/q/256921/358766) – Stevoisiak May 07 '18 at 14:33

1 Answers1

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As stated in the comments, your processor supports Intel Turbo Boost Technology.
If you are not scared by (very slightly) technical papers, I suggest you to take a quick look at that paper.

Your CPU is the 3770 which is designed to operate safely1 at 3.40 GHz.
However, that CPU has four cores and as fewer cores are active the total thermal power decreases; so the engineers at Intel thought given the conditions they can safely increase the clock on the few cores that remain active.

Intel Turbo Boost basically increases the clock of active CPU cores up to 3.90 GHz as long as the power/thermal consumption remains under safe operating limits.
Paradoxically this is only possible only the CPU is somewhat idle, as explicitly stated in the paper linked before:

For example, one particular processor may allow up to two frequency steps (266.66 MHz) when just one core is active and one frequency step (133.33 MHz) when two or more cores are active. Therefore, higher deep C-state residency (“C3” or “C6”) on some cores will generally result in increased core frequency on the active cores.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that a higher speed means a busier CPU. Quite the opposite!

As a rule of thumb, the CPU can use a higher clock for short periods or with low performance demanding2 software.
The real thing is a closed-loop control:

These constraints are managed as a simple closed-loop control system.
When temperature, power or current exceed factory configured limits and you are above the base operating frequency, the processor automatically steps down core frequency in order to reduce temperature, power and current. The processor then monitors temperature, power, and current and continuously re-evaluates.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology is active as long as the Power profile is what is technically called P0 (in ACPI jargon).
This means that if you enable "Max performance" in the settings of the OS, the processor will remain at 3.90 GHz on "idle" or "near-idle".

Regarding the measure of 4.14 GHz from task manager, I am highly skeptical about overclock.
Intel processors don't have a direct way to report the current operating frequency. In the same old paper linked at the beginning, Intel gives an algorithm to estimate the running frequency and says:

Due to the way the BIOS and OS communicate Intel® Turbo Boost technology, software may never detect core clock frequencies above the base operating frequency

Being an estimate it can be off by some value, 4.14 GHz over 3.90 GHz is a 6% error which to me is not enough to indicate any overclocking, though I may be wrong here.

I'm not even sure the 3370 as an unlocked multiplier (should end in k?)

My guess is that Task Manager is doing its best to estimate the current frequency but it is not always accurate.

1 In terms of current/power consumption and temperature.

2 In the sense that not all functional units of the processor are used.

Tmanok
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Margaret Bloom
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  • I also noticed this frequency>100% most of the times while on idle on my Windows 8.1, Asus laptop and this processor: AMD FX-7600P Radeon R7 12 computer cores 4C+8G 2.7 GHz. So I suppose AMD also uses the same boost technology? I've done nothing to overclock my CPU. Should it be a concern? – dashakol Feb 27 '21 at 07:00
  • @dashakol Yes, it's called Core Performance Boost. Anyway, the general rule is that CPUs are tested to run a full speed for what could potentially be forever. So having your CPU running >= 100% is more an annoyance than anything else. Further, Windows is almost never really idle. As soon it detects low user activities, it starts doing its annoying weird manteinance tasks. – Margaret Bloom Feb 27 '21 at 11:30