Upcoming Nehalem CPUs Are "Self-Overclocking"

As we are approaching the official release date for Intel's highly anticipated, next-generation Nehalem processors, more details about their features and capabilities just keep on surfacing. Earlier today, we told you about Intel's intentions to provide its upcoming CPUs with a new feature, dubbed "Turbo Memory." Now, based on the most recent details, we can say that the new feature is seemingly highly related to the processors' overclocking capabilities.

As also noted before, what Intel's Nehalem processors will bring to the table is a significant overclocking potential, offering computer enthusiasts the means by which they can boost and improve their system's performance. Now, the new Turbo Mode feature essentially appears to be the processor's "self-overclocking" tool.

Intel's Francois Piednoel and Matt Dunford outlined the issues that the overclocking and benchmarking people would have to expect when testing the new Core i7 chips. Turbo Mode has been designed to change and alter the frequency levels on the four cores, when it "senses" that the processor is out of its thermal envelope. This essentially means that the CPU will downgrade its core speed, once it "considers" that temperatures levels have reached a critical level.

Fortunately, the BIOS will have a menu that will enable users to select the thermal dissipation (TDP) numbers. According to Piednoel and Dunford, a high-performance heatsink could allow this number to be set at 190 watts, while an average heatsink would allow for 140 watts or below. Once the CPU detects that is has gone beyond these limits, it will start clocking itself up/down, while trying to move poorly threaded applications to fewer cores.

This feature could ultimately allow a variation in benchmark results but, according to Piednoel, users will be able to turn the Turbo Boost off in BIOS. Furthermore, Intel informed that, due to the fact that most games are single-threaded, the turbo mode would actually provide a 10% increase in potential frame rates per second. In fact, actual frame rates could be in the "single digit" numbers for most gamers, Piedonel explained.