Real Temp - New temp program for Intel Core processors

[unclewebb]

Hi randomizer. Nice to see another old timer drop by.

One test I did a long time ago was to run Prime 95 Small FFTs and then lock it by using Set Affinity... in the Task Manager so it would only run on core 0 and core 1 and then reverse it so the same load is only running on core 2 and core 3 with next to nothing on core 0 and core 1. With the shrink to 45nm, the difference between the two sets of cores during this kind of test is minimal. It shows that when you have 4 cores within a cm of each other, there isn't a hell of a lot of difference in the core temperature between any of them even when two cores are doing all the work and the other two are idle. When all 4 cores are working equally running Prime Small FFTs, the quick heat transfer between cores should have them all at pretty much the same temperature after Prime has been running for a while. There's just no reasonable explanation why they would be 10C different.

In testing, the reported temperatures are never equal which is one of the reasons I think TJMax is not consistent across the cores. If TJMax is not consistent then the "why" is an interesting thing to consider.

On the Q6600 it is possible to have the two Dual Cores running with two different multipliers. Maybe they offset the TJMax so if CPU 0 started to throttle, it would start to cycle down to a 6.0X multiplier, letting it cool off while CPU 1 would still be able to run at full speed using its 9.0X multiplier. This would cause a smaller drop in performance compared to all 4 cores dropping down to 6.0X at the exact same time. Your explanation / theory makes a lot of sense randomizer.

We've seen that these CPUs don't go ka-boom at 90C or 100C or 110C or even higher so setting TJMax slightly higher on CPU 1 wouldn't cause any issues and should smooth the transition if there ever is any thermal throttling.

It would have been nice if last year's IDF presentations included some more meaty engineering documents instead of Core i7 is wonderful documents prepared by the PR and fluff department.

We will never know the whole truth about these sensors so I'm open to any reasonable explanation that can cover all the data that's been collected.

Edit: Kind of funny. I was just helping another user on another forum understand his CPU today with this ~10C difference between his two Dual Cores in his Q9650.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.ph...9&postcount=18