Guy Therien

One of the most misunderstood basic technical points over the past decade is related to power consumption and how different CPUs react differently to load. The basic premise is that when there is extra power budget available, individual cores can raise their frequency and voltage to maximize performance on short time scales, scaling back when more cores are needed. The confusion comes from how this works, intertwined with how TDP relates to power consumption. After some interesting personal discussions at Computex, Intel Fellow Guy Therien, the Chief Architect of Intel’s Performance Segmentation agreed to go on the record about how Intel has adapted its explanation of TDP and Turbo, as well as speak to Intel’s new Performance Maximizer overclocking tool. We also cover Intel’s...