There is no set-in-stone speed which the Core i5 or i7 processor will reach when in Turbo Boost. If the Core i5 or i7 processor sees that it is operating well within limits, Turbo Boost kicks in. The TDP is the maximum amount of power the processor is supposed to use. 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. 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. 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.Īt least, that is how processors used to be. 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.

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.

Normally the computer processor in your laptop or desktop has a standard clock speed which partially determines how quickly it performs.

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