Intel C2518 FH8065501516710 Data Sheet

Intel

®

 Atom™ Processor C2000 Product Family for Microserver

September 2014

Datasheet, Vol. 1 of 3

Order Number: 330061-002US

51

Intel Turbo Boost Technology may not be available on all SKUs.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology increases the ratio of application power to TDP. Thus, 

thermal solutions and platform cooling that are designed to less than thermal design 

guidance experience thermal and performance issues since more applications tend to 

run at the maximum power limit for significant periods of time. Refer to the BIOS 

Writer’s Guide (BWG) and the Turbo Implementation Guide for more information. 

• Intel Turbo Boost Technology is a feature that allows the processor to 

opportunistically and automatically run faster than its rated operating core and/or 

render clock frequency when there is sufficient power headroom, and the product is 

within specified temperature and current limits. The Intel Turbo Boost Technology 

feature increases performance of both multi-threaded and single-threaded 

workloads. The processor supports a turbo mode where the processor uses the 

thermal capacity associated with the package and run at power levels higher than 

TDP power for short durations. This improves the system responsiveness for short, 

bursty usage conditions. The turbo feature needs to be properly enabled by the 

BIOS for the processor to operate with maximum performance. Refer to the BIOS 

Writer's Guide for enabling details. Since the turbo feature is configurable and 

dependent on many platform design limits outside of the processor control, the 

maximum performance cannot be ensured. Turbo mode availability is independent 

of the number of active cores; however, the turbo mode frequency is dynamic and 

dependent on the instantaneous application power load, the number of active 

cores, user configurable settings, operating environment, and system design.

The processor's rated frequency assumes that all execution cores are active and are at 

the sustained Thermal Design Power (TDP). However, under a typical operation not all 

cores are active or executing a high-power workload. Most applications are consuming 

less than the TDP at the rated frequency. Intel Turbo Boost Technology takes advantage 

of the available TDP headroom and active cores are able to increase their operating 

frequency. To determine the highest performance frequency amongst active cores, the 

processor takes the following into consideration to recalculate turbo frequency during 

runtime:

• Number of cores operating in the C0 state
• Estimated core current consumption
• Estimated package prior and present power consumption
• Package temperature

Any of these factors affect the maximum frequency for a given workload. If the power, 

current, or thermal limit is reached, the processor automatically reduces the frequency 

to stay with its TDP limit. Turbo processor frequencies are only active if the operating 

system is requesting the P0 state.

Core Turbo Boost frequencies may vary slightly from specified frequencies due to 

variances in the base clock frequency which is based on the installed DIMM speeds. The 

base clock frequency for 1600 MTS DIMMs will be 100 MHz while the base clock 

frequency for 1333 MTS DIMMs will be 83.3 MHz. This different base clock frequency 

and the fact that the Turbo Boost frequencies are derived based on a multiple of the 

base clock frequency may result in a slightly higher or slightly lower Turbo Boost 

Frequency than specified.