How does cpu speed work?

Question

So I was just wondering about something that’s kind of strange to me. I used to have a HP pavilion gaming laptop with 1050Ti and an intel i5 8300h with 8 gb of ram and 1 tb hdd.

When I was using this laptop to play games and stuff, it would run kind of slow and it would a long time to load certain things (I was on windows 11 btw) not to mention gaming performance, So I tried to reset the laptop but this would not work since windows recovery couldn’t be turned on somehow. So I had decided to buy a usb stick and download windows 10 on it with a separate device and install it on the usb so I could plug it in the laptop and just boot a whole fresh windows off of the usb instead which worked out really well for me.

As I was installing some games and personalizing the laptop, I was noticing that everything on laptop ran 100x faster then when it did before and decided to check the cpu in task manager. I was really stunned to see that my cpu was running at 3.99 ghz constantly, didn’t go up and didn’t go down, just stayed 3.99 ghz anytime I was using it, and this was really shocking to me (just a note that I hadn’t touched anything in the BIOS so using that as a reason doesn’t work). Now after 7 years I decided to find a better pc and I was browsing through Walmart’s display pc’s and as I was checking them out, I saw the cpu speed on a desktop that had a 12th gen intel i7 12700KF and was only running 2.34 ghz.

So to make a long story short, my question is: How was my 7 year old laptop able to run at a higher cpu speed then a newer one? I would also like to know fundamentals and tips on how to boost cpu speed

Answer 1

Hello,

There are several factors that can influence the CPU speed. CPUs have a base clock speed, which is the guaranteed speed at which the CPU will run under nominal conditions. Many modern CPUs also feature a Turbo Boost (Intel) or Precision Boost (AMD) technology that allows them to run at higher speeds for short periods when needed and if thermal conditions allow. The Intel i5-8300H has a base clock of 2.3 GHz and a max turbo frequency of 4.00 GHz, so seeing it run at 3.99 GHz suggests it was operating in turbo mode.

The speed reported in the Task Manager can be the turbo boost speed and might not reflect the average operating speed.

In the case of the i7-12700KF, with a base clock of 3.6 GHz and a boost clock of up to 5.0 GHz, seeing it run at 2.34 GHz might indicate that the Task Manager captured a momentary downclock, possibly due to low workload or power-saving features.

A system’s power settings can influence how aggressively the CPU clocks up or down. Your gaming laptop might have been set to a high-performance power plan, which would keep the CPU running at higher frequencies.

To boost CPU speed, here are some general tips:

Keep your system clean: Regularly uninstall unnecessary programs and use built-in utilities like Disk Cleanup.

Update your drivers: Make sure your hardware drivers, especially the chipset and graphics drivers, are up-to-date.

Optimize your power plan: In Windows, you can adjust your power plan to ‘High performance’ to ensure your CPU runs at higher speeds more often.

Overclocking: If you have a K-series Intel CPU and a compatible motherboard (and expertise), you can manually overclock your CPU to run at higher speeds. Note that this involves risks, such as increased heat and potential hardware damage if not done correctly.

In conclusion, higher frequency doesn’t always mean better performance. Newer processors, like the i7-12700KF, might run at lower frequencies under light loads but can handle more instructions per cycle and offer more cores/threads for better multitasking and overall performance.

Best Regards,

Hania Lian

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