Intel Skylake Speed Shift technology

[NumLock21]

Modern computer processors are constantly changing their operating frequency (and voltage) depending on workload. For Intel processors, this is often handled by the operating system which will request a particular level of performance, known as the Performance State or P-State, from the processor.

Ever since Intel introduced SpeedStep technology, all modern processors can change its operating frequency dynamically depending on the type of workload a computer is running. With this, mobile devices like laptop and tablets had a huge benefit, because of battery life, it's best when a program is running, the processor runs at its maximum clock speed, so the task can be completed faster, and after the task is complete, the processor can quickly bring itself back to minimum operating state. On Intel Skylake processors, there is a whole new way how of this technology works, and it's called Intel Speed Shift. Traditionally Intel Speed Step is controlled by the OS, With Intel Speed Shift, some of the task, or all of it is controlled by the processor itself. What this means is, faster and finer control of the processors operating frequency. Comparing Intel Speed Step to Intel Speed Shift, with Intel Speed Step it takes about 100ms for the processor to go from minimum operating frequency to max performance. Intel Speed Shift on the other hand just takes about 35ms. To enable Intel Speed Shift, you'll need a Intel Skylake processor and Microsoft Windows 10, because it's the only current OS to support it. A patch will be released, sometime in the November time frame to enable this feature.

 

 

 

 

Anandtech

[JebKerman]

so, is this the inverse hyper-threading thing? or just a more rapid response to changes in load?

 

EDIT: It appears to be the latter

[NumLock21]

so, is this the inverse hyper-threading thing? or just a more rapid response to changes in load?

I believe it's more rapid response to changes in load, not inverse HT.

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

so, is this the inverse hyper-threading thing? or just a more rapid response to changes in load?

Just a more rapid response to changes in load.

[Kherm]

It should be noted that the November update to Windows 10, which is a completely different build (10586) will enable this feature. The new build is expected to land on Thursday. 

 

Here's an article that explains how much faster this made the Surface Pro 4 http://www.windowscentral.com/intel-speed-shift-windows-10

[Samfisher]

Intel just improved on their race to idle, pretty interesting! And as always, Anandtech goes way deep.

[Dabombinable]

*sigh* Glad I went with my 4790K instead of a 6700K, because #screwwindows10.

[GzeroD]

so, is this the inverse hyper-threading thing? or just a more rapid response to changes in load?

its a big jump in the responsiveness of turboboost. for overclocked systems that idle at a high clock this wont make a big difference since they do little to no boosting. for systems that have a low base clock but significantly higher boost this will let them get small processor intensive tasks completed much faster.

 

Think intense bits of physics calculations in games (like after someone throws a grenade or a building blows up) would see a decent gain from this if the game wasn't forcing the cpu too turbo in the first place; while something like a video encode would see little to no improvement because it is a sustained load and the processor was already spending most of it's time in its maximum performance state.

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

its a big jump in the responsiveness of turboboost. for overclocked systems that idle at a high clock this wont make a big difference since they do little to no boosting. for systems that have a low base clock but significantly higher boost this will let them get small processor intensive tasks completed much faster.

 

Think intense bits of physics calculations in games (like after someone throws a grenade or a building blows up) would see a decent gain from this if the game wasn't forcing the cpu too turbo in the first place; while something like a video encode would see little to no improvement because it is a sustained load and the processor was already spending most of it's time in its maximum performance state.

In games the CPU runs at the maximum frequency either way usually, even if it isn't under 100% load. And it also has an effect on overclocked systems as they also downclock in idle.

[GzeroD]

In games the CPU runs at the maximum frequency either way usually, even if it isn't under 100% load. And it also has an effect on overclocked systems as they also downclock in idle.

not all of them do. my 3570k sits at 4.3 24/7 just too be that little bit snappier. (The Asus extreme Preset on my Z77 disables speedstep and I never bothered to turn it back on when I changed the multipliers)

[AlexGoesHigh]

*sigh* Glad I went with my 4790K instead of a 6700K, because #screwwindows10.

its a hardware feature, Intel just persuaded MS to code it into Windows so it can be demonstrated and used, Linux at some point will get this, same with Mac whenever Apple decides to update hardware to Skylake and code it into OSX if it even does it.

[Dabombinable]

its a hardware feature, Intel just persuaded MS to code it into Windows so it can be demonstrated and used, Linux at some point will get this, same with Mac whenever Apple decides to update hardware to Skylake and code it into OSX if it even does it.

Still, its just an artificial limit-they could have had all versions of Windows working with it due to it being a hardware feature..

[GzeroD]

its a hardware feature, Intel just persuaded MS to code it into Windows so it can be demonstrated and used, Linux at some point will get this, same with Mac whenever Apple decides to update hardware to Skylake and code it into OSX if it even does it.

OSX will do it. The faster the task is done the faster it can go back too low power state. That will increase battery life; Apple will jump on that.

[AlexGoesHigh]

Still, its just an artificial limit-they could have had all versions of Windows working with it due to it being a hardware feature..

Maybe, we don't know exactly how is implemented, if it could be done with a chipset driver update, i'm sure Intel will claim support to 7 and up and not an update to 10, I think for Intel it doesn't make business sense to limit hardware features into a single piece of software unless the software has to manually support it.

[TechGod]

OSX will do it. The faster the task is done the faster it can go back too low power state. That will increase battery life; Apple will jump on that.

For a company that makes laptops with insane battery life (I know this because I have one) I have no doubts about it either. Wonder when they'll go to an IZGO panel with variable refresh rate to boost battery even more though.