CPU Clock going up and down randomly

[atrt7]

I have an Athlon X4 860K and I ran an aida64 stress test on it (cpu, fpu, cache). It went from 3.9GHZ to 1.7GHZ randomly despite being at a temperature of only 45-40 degrees celsius. Is this normal?

[TubsAlwaysWins]

Turn off Turbo

[atrt7]

In AMD Overdrive or the BIOS?

 

[TubsAlwaysWins]

1 minute ago, atrt7 said:

In AMD Overdrive or the BIOS?

 

BIOS

[TubsAlwaysWins]

Just now, wrathoftheturkey said:

Don't forget to tag or quote people. @TubsAlwaysWins

Yeah just realized that

[mariushm]

It's normal for the CPU to lower core frequency if that core doesn't have a lot of work to do.

x4 860k is stock 3.7 ghz and goes turbo up to 4 ghz. I think 3.925 Ghz or something like that is an in-between step between stock and maximum boost.

If a core isn't used much, it lowers its frequency to 2.5 ghz or 1.7 ghz or maybe even lower.  As it produces less heat, this means other cores can boost temporarily to higher frequencies and use more power and produce more heat, without producing overall much more heat. That's how some cores can be boosted up to 4 Ghz.

 

[ARikozuM]

[REDACTED]

[atrt7]

15 minutes ago, TubsAlwaysWins said:

BIOS

I just did that and it's only going to 3.7GHZ and will still go to 1.7GHZ, but less frequently. Also the temp is 43 degrees celsius.

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

I was quoting him because it wasn't relevant to the original post, it was only relevant to the next post he made. Don't quote the original post, but if the answer is directly addressing something else said in the post then it makes sense to quote.

Oh, he didn't add the quote to the 2nd post? Never mind then. Carry on.

[Tech Wizard]

Go to Power Options and select High Performance if you want a your clock speed from BIOS without jumping. I would recommend "balanced mode", so when the CPU is doing nothing at idle, it will down clock itself to your CPUs stock clock, and when you put some preasure to it, it will boost up to whatever you overclocked it to in the bios.

Put high performance if you don't want clock speed to jump