I know you were Prime stable for 6 or 7 hours. What RealTemp is showing me is that even though you were stable, Turbo mode might have been cycling on and off at full load. Hundreds of times a second the multi can drop from 21.0 to 20.0. Software that only checks to see what the multiplier is once per second might miss what's really going on with Turbo mode. That's why Intel recommends to use the high performance timers built into the Core i7 to accurately calculate the average multiplier during a 1 second sample period.
As far as I know, RealTemp is the only software that is using this method which is directly based on the Intel® Turbo Boost Technology white paper.
Next time you run Prime 95 Small FFTs up to 90C it would be interesting to see if the i7 Turbo tool can confirm that your Turbo is not fully engaged. This was an issue for some motherboards when Core i7 was first introduced and I guess it can still be an issue depending on heat and power consumption of a CPU.
If the i7 Turbo tool shows 20.50 at full load then that shows that the Turbo is only engaged 50% of the time. A reading of 20.90 would mean that it was engaged 90% of the time during the last second. CPU-Z should correctly report the first case but it might be completely missing the second case.
I'm trying to provide XS users with an accurate tool to monitor their CPU so any feedback will be appreciated by all users.
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