How Intel Turbo Boost Works

Normally the computer processor in your laptop or desktop has a standard clock speed which partially determines how quickly it performs. While the processor might lower its clock speed at times in order to conserve power, the clock speed which is stated when you buy the computer is the fastest clock speed you’ll receive unless you decide to overclock.

If you do decide to overclock, or you ever speak to someone who regularly overclocks processors, you’ll discover a dirty little secret ““ the clock speed a processor ships at is typically much lower than the actual maximum clock speed which the processor could achieve.

The extra headroom isn’t used only because the manufacturer (Intel or AMD) needs to plan for worst case scenarios, which means they need a processor which is sold as a 3GHz processor to work at that speed even if someone decides to use a winter jacket as a PC case.

At least, that is how processors used to be. However, Intel’s new Core i5 and Core i7 processors have a feature called Turbo Boost which has the ability to dynamically scale up the clock speed of a processor depending on the thermal headroom available.

How Intel Turbo Boost Works

Intel Turbo Boost monitors the current usage of a Core i5 or i7 processor to determine how close the processor is to the maximum thermal design power, or TDP. The TDP is the maximum amount of power the processor is supposed to use. If the Core i5 or i7 processor sees that it is operating well within limits, Turbo Boost kicks in.

Turbo Boost is a dynamic feature. There is no set-in-stone speed which the Core i5 or i7 processor will reach when in Turbo Boost. Turbo Boost operates in 133Mhz increments and will scale up until it either reaches the maximum Turbo Boost allowed (which is determined by the model of processor) or the processor comes close to its maximum TDP. For example, the Core i5 750 has a base clock speed of 2.66GHz but has a maximum Turbo Boost speed of 3.2GHz.

However, Intel still advertises these processors by their base clock speed. This is because Intel does not guarantee that a processor will ever hit its maximum Turbo Boost speed. I have yet to hear of an Intel processor which can’t hit its maximum Turbo Boost speed, but hitting the maximum Turbo Boost is dependent on workload ““ it won’t happen all of the time.

Why Turbo Boost Rocks

Despite Turbo Boost’s lack of predictability, it is still an excellent feature. It provides a solution to the problem of compromising between dual and quad core processors.

Before Turbo Boost the choice of purchasing a dual core or quad core processor was a compromise. Dual core processors were clocked faster than quad core processors simply because having more cores increases power consumption and heat generation. Some programs, like games, favored dual core processors, while other programs, like 3D rendering software, favored quad cores. If you used both types of applications you had to make a choice about which was most important to you. You couldn’t receive maximum performance in both from a single processor.

Turbo Boost gets rid of this compromise. If you use the Core i5 750 in a 3D rendering application it will probably only operate at its base clock speed because all four cores will be used. However, if you use the Core i5 750 with a game which only needs two cores ““ presto! – the third and fourth cores go into a low power state and the two cores you’re actually using are running at a clock speed as fast as what you’d expect from a standard dual core processor.

The Future of Intel Turbo Boost ““ And AMD’s Response

Turbo Boost is a great feature, and it is part of the reason why Intel’s latest processors are often superior to those from AMD. However, there is still more potential to be tapped. By the end of 2010 Intel will have released ultra-low voltage Core i5 and i7 processors for laptops. These processors will use Turbo Boost as a way of improving battery life.

For example, Intel will be releasing a processor called the Core i7 620UM. This processor has a base clock speed of only 1.06GHz. However, it has a maximum Turbo Boost of 2.133 GHz. What we will end up with is a processor which will run at only the base clock when on battery but can double its speed when plugged in.

Intel’s success with Turbo Boost has not gone unnoticed by AMD, however. With the release of the six-core AMD processors, such as the Phenom II X6 1090T, AMD has introduced a similar feature called Turbo Core. Turbo Core isn’t as advanced as Intel’s Turbo Boost, but it is a clear sign of the direction processors will be taking in the future.

It appears the days of set-in-stone processor clock speeds are over. The future will be about changing a processor’s performance on the fly to meet the demands of the user.

Did this article help you understand more about Turbo Boost and why you need it? Still not sure about something? Go ahead and get it answered in the comments.

Searching for New Ideas

Google's head of research explains why artificial intelligence is crucial to the search company's future.

If anyone can preview the future of computing, it should be Alfred Spector, Google's director of research. Spector's team focuses on the most challenging areas of computer science research with the intention of shaping Google's future technology. During a break from aNational Academy of Engineering meeting on emerging technologies hosted by his company, Spector told Technology Review's computing editor Tom Simonite about these efforts, and explained how Google funnels its users' knowledge into artificial intelligence.

TR: Google often releases products based on novel ideas and technologies. How is the research conducted by your team different from the work carried out by other groups?

Spector: We also work on things that benefit Google and its users, but we have a longer time horizon and we try to advance the state of the art. That means areas like natural language processing [understanding human language], machine learning, speech recognition, translation, and image recognition. These are mostly problems that have traditionally been called artificial intelligence.

We have the significant advantage of being able to work in vitro on the large systems that Google operates, so we have large amounts of data and large numbers of users.

Can you give an example of some AI that has come out of this research effort?

Our translation tools can now use parsing—understanding the grammatical parts of a sentence. We used to train our translation just statistically, by comparing texts in different languages. Parsing now goes along with that, so we can assign parts of speech to sentences. Take the sentence "The dog crossed the road": "the dog" is the subject, "crossed" is a verb, "the road" is the object. This makes our translations better, and it's particularly useful in Japanese.

Another example is Fusion Tables, which is now part of Google Docs [the company's online office suite]. You can create a database that is shared with others and visualize and publish that data. A lot of media organizations are using it to display information on Google Maps or Google Earth to explain situations to the public. [During the recent hurricane Irene, New York public radio station WNYC used Fusion Tables to create an interactive guide to evacuation zones in the city.]

Does Google have a particular approach to AI?

In general, we have been using hybrid artificial intelligence, which means that we learn from our user community. When they label something as having a certain meaning or implication, we learn from that. With voice search, for example, if we correctly recognize an utterance, we will see that it lead to something that someone clicked on. The system self-trains based on that, so the more it's used, the better it gets.

Spelling correction for Web search uses the same approach. When Barack Obama ran for president, people might not have been sure how to spell his name and tried different ways. Eventually they came across something that worked, then they clicked on the result. We learned then which of the spellings was the one that got the results, which allowed us to automatically correct them.

We think Fusion Tables will also help our systems learn. If there are thousands of tables that say there are 50 states in the Union, there are probably 50 states in the Union. And the Union probably has states. Don't underestimate that. It sounds trivial, but computers can induce lots of information from many examples.

What new directions is the research group exploring at the moment?

We're looking at projects in security, because it's an increasingly important topic across computing. One area we're looking at is whether you can constrain the programs that you use to work on the most minimal amount of information possible. If they went wrong, they would be limited in what harm they could do.

Imagine you're using a word processor. In principle, it could delete all of your files; it's acting as you. But what if when you started your word processor, you gave it only a single file to edit? The worst it could do would be to corrupt that file; the damage it could do would be very limited. We're looking if we could tightly constrain the damage that could be done by faulty programs. That's an old line of thought. People have thought of this for years. We think it might be practical now.

Google is working hard on its social networking project, Google+. Do you expect your research to contribute to that effort?

Being useful in the social realm is very strong for many of the things that we do. Google+ is a communication mechanism, and we do research on AI problems that could aid communication—for example, how to recommend content, or how to communicate across languages. Ideas like those could help people communicate across their social network.

Google+ also provides us lots more opportunity to learn from our users. Take the "+1" button, for example. That's a very important signal that could be quite relevant to improving how we understand what matters to you. If your 10 friends think something is great, it's very likely you would like to see it.

Movies, Music, and More Move Inside Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg announces ways to listen to music and watch movies inside Facebook, giving users less reason to spend time outside the site. 

New features coming to Facebook this week will let users listen to music, watch movies, and read news without ever leaving the social network's borders. They will also automatically broadcast what users are listening to, watching, and reading, if the user gives permission. The changes, part of an attempt to encourage people to share more of their lives through Facebook, were announced by company founder Mark Zuckerberg at the company's F8 event in San Francisco today.

Zuckerberg announced during his keynote speech that a slew of media companies will collaborate on the project. If a person installs a Facebook app from any of those companies, his or her activity will be shown to friends via a new "ticker" box at the right-hand side of all Facebook pages. Users will be able to click on updates to get access to the same content, which will play, or become viewable, inside Facebook."You're going to discover lots of new things that your friends are already doing all the time right now," said Zuckerberg. "If I see that my friend is listening to something, I can hover over it and just play it; I'm listening with my friend, and my music is synched up with theirs."A similar change will make it possible to watch TV shows or movies that friends are watching through services including Hulu and Netflix. Updates will be sent to Facebook even if a person is using a mobile app or watching through the service's own website. "We think this is going to make it so people can express an order of magnitude more than they can today," said Zuckerberg.Zuckerberg's keynote was his first major public appearance since the launch of Google's competing social network, Google+, and the release of the Oscar-winning movie The Social Network, which painted him in a less-than-flattering light. Saturday Night Live comedian Andy Samberg opened the proceedings, taking the stage in character as his comic version of Zuckerberg. Samberg announced a number of spoof Facebook features, including the "slow poke," before the real Mark Zuckerberg ran on stage for a few minutes of banter. Zuckerberg's presentation was less well rehearsed than a Steve Jobs keynote, but he came across as more accessible than Apple's ex-CEO. The new features may prove controversial. In some ways they resemble Beacon, a failed project from 2007 in which sites like Amazon automatically posted updates to Facebook when a person bought something. Beacon was cancelled after public protests over a lack of privacy controls.Zuckerberg didn't mention Beacon, but privacy issues came up when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took the stage to demonstrate how people will be able to use his service through Facebook. Hastings explained that the feature couldn't yet launch in the United States because of a decades-old law intended to prevent video rental stores from sharing titles rented by their customers, but he expressed hope that a bill currently before Congress would soon alter that law.Facebook will compile a stream of snippets about a person's listening, viewing, and reading habits into summaries that their friends can read. "Sometimes you discover things your friends are doing right now; other times you want to look at patterns that build up over a period of time," said Zuckerberg. He added that the new features should make Facebook a driving force in making content, particularly music, pay in the digital era.

"The key to making music work [online] is not trying to block you from sharing songs you've bought; it's helping you discover music so you'll buy more," Zuckerberg said before introducing Daniel Ek, CEO of the music service Spotify, who claimed that data from his company's users showed that helping people sample songs makes them "twice as likely" to buy music.

Referring to Netflix, Spotify, and other partner companies planning to integrate with Facebook's new features, Zuckerberg said, "These companies are not just coming up with ways to make movies and TV more social; they're rethinking entire industries." The Web's most-read news source, Yahoo, is also working with Facebook, and News Corp.'s iPad-only magazine, The Daily, will become available through the site.The new features are made possible by technology called the Open Graph, which connects Facebook's data with outside sources of information. First announced in 2010, the Open Graph made it possible for users to recommend books, movies, and Web pages via the now-ubiquitous Like button and have those recommendations appear on their Facebook page. The Open Graph can also describe people's connection to something—for example, showing that they "read," "watched," or "cooked" it. This kind of connection underpins Facebook's new features.When the Open Graph project was first announced, it was pitched as way to allow users' social connections to follow them around the wider Web. The features announced today work in the other direction, bringing activity and content inside Facebook and potentially obviating the need to spend online time outside it.Another new feature, dubbed Timeline, allows users to curate an interactive record of their life over the years. Timeline automatically summarizes a person's past Facebook activity and attempts to identify the most significant moments. Users can also specify particular photos, events, or other content to highlight on the timeline.

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