A few days after Intel officially announced its 11thº Generation Core Rocket Lake, the press received an email about a new feature coming to the platform that was not in our original briefing. The purpose of this feature is to provide more performance to users who have good processors, and Intel is calling it Adaptive Boost Technology.
Adaptive Boost Technology is now the fifth frequency metric that Intel uses in its high-level processors for enthusiasts, and another element in Intel’s ever-complex ‘Turbo’ feature family. Here is the list, in case we forget one:
| Intel frequency levels | ||
| Base Frequency | – | The frequency at which the processor is guaranteed to operate under warranty conditions with a power consumption not exceeding the processor’s TDP rating. |
| Turbo Boost 2.0 | TB2 | When in turbo mode, this is the defined frequency at which the cores will work. TB2 varies according to how many cores are being used. |
| Turbo Boost Max 3.0 | TBM3 ‘Favored Core’ |
When in turbo mode, for the best processor cores (usually one or two), they will get extra frequency when they are the only cores in use. |
| Increased thermal speed | TVB | In turbo mode, if the peak thermal temperature detected in the processor is below a certain value (70ºC on desktops), the entire processor will receive a frequency increase of +100 MHz. This follows the TB2 frequency tables depending on the core load . |
| Adaptive Boost Technology | ABT ‘floating turbo’ |
When in turbo mode, if 3 or more cores are active, the processor will attempt to provide the best frequency within the power budget, regardless of the TB2 frequency table. The limit for this frequency is given by TB2 in 2-core mode. ABT replaces TVB when 3 or more cores are active. |
| * Turbo mode is limited by the system’s turbo power level (PL2) and time (Tau). Intel offers recommended guidelines for this, but these guidelines can be overridden (and are routinely ignored) by motherboard manufacturers. Most gaming motherboards will implement an effective “infinite” turbo mode. In this mode, the observed peak power will be the PL2 value. It is important to note that the 70ºC requirement for TVB is also often ignored, and TVB will be applied whatever the temperature. | ||
Intel provided a slide trying to describe the new ABT, but the diagram is a bit messy and does not explain very well. Here is the practical version of AnandTech.
The first is the Core i7-11700K that AnandTech has already tested. This processor has TB2, TBM3, but not TVB or ABT.
Official specifications show that when one to four cores are loaded, when in turbo mode, it increases to 4.9 GHz. If it is under two cores, the operating system will switch threads to the favorite cores and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 will go into 5.0 GHz operation. More than four core loads will be distributed as above.
In Core i9-11900, the version without overclocking, we also have Thermal Velocity Boost that adds another 100 MHz in each core max turbo, but only if the processor is below 70ºC.
We can see here that the first two cores receive both TBM3 (favored core) and TVB, which makes these two cores make a bigger leap. In this case, if all eight cores are loaded, the turbo is 4.6 GHz, unless the CPU is below 70ºC, then we have a 4.7 GHz all-core turbo.
Now switch to Core i9-11900K or Core i9-11900KF, which are the only two processors with the new floating turbo / Adaptive Boost technology. Everything besides two cores changes and TVB is no longer applicable.
Here we see what appears to be a 5.1 GHz all-core turbo, with three to eight loaded cores. This is +300 MHz above the TVB when all eight cores are loaded. But the reason I am calling this a floating turbo is because it is opportunistic.
What this means is that if all 8 cores are charged, TB2 means that it will run at 4.7 GHz. If there is an energy budget and thermal budget, it will try 4.8 GHz. If there is more energy budget and thermal budget available, it will go to 4.9 GHz, then to 5.0 GHz and then to 5.1 GHz. The frequency will fluctuate as long as there is enough budget to play with and will increase / decrease as needed. This is important because different instructions cause different amounts of energy consumption and such.
If this sounds familiar, you are not wrong. AMD does the same thing, and they call it Precision Boost 2, and it was released in April 2018 with Zen +.
AMD applies its floating turbo to all of its processors – Intel is currently limiting the floating turbo to only Core i9-K and Core i9-KF on Core 11º Gen Rocket Lake.
One of the things we noticed with AMD, however, is that this floating turbo increases power consumption, especially with AVX / AVX2 workloads. Intel is likely to see similar increases in power consumption. What may be a small grace here is that Intel’s frequency hops are still limited to full 100 MHz steps, while AMD can do that at the 25 MHz limit. This means that Intel needs to manage bigger steps and probably only you will cross that limit if you know it can be maintained for a fixed period of time. It will be interesting to see if Intel gives the user the ability to change these entry / exit points for Adaptive Boost Technology.
The other difference is that, for now, ABT at Intel is disabled by default. Users will have to enable it in their BIOS to take advantage. On that scale, I suspect that most will not, simply because most do not enter the BIOS. Enthusiasts may, however, also decide to overclock, which makes ABT debatable. The other alternative is that motherboard vendors will enable it by default anyway, simply because Intel says it is within specifications.
The final word
It is a little strange that Intel decided to talk about this feature two days after the official announcement of Rocket Lake, to the point that BIOS enabling ABT is only being distributed now (this does not affect our review of the Core i7-11700K). This indicates that perhaps the feature was not ready in time for the announcement, or even ready to go, and Intel was still debating whether to actually make it a feature. Then again, all the Z590 motherboards we’ve seen look super-built for this generation of processors – Z590 starts at $ 175, which used to be an average market price, so something like ABT should be ready to use. It makes me wonder if ABT is applicable for B560 motherboards, or if it will be an exclusive feature of the Z590. Intel has stated that ABT is under warranty and is not considered to be overclocked.
There will be some users who are already familiar with Multi-Core Enhancement / Multi-Core Turbo. This is a feature that some motherboard vendors have, and generally enable by default, which allows a processor to achieve a single-core turbo equal to the single-core turbo. This is somewhat similar to ABT, but it was more of a fixed frequency, while ABT is a floating turbo project. That said, some motherboard vendors may still have Multi-Core Enhancement as part of their project, bypassing ABT.
Overall, it is a performance advantage. It makes sense for users who can also manage thermals. AMD’s implementation allowed for additional performance when it switched to TSMC’s 7 nm. I have a feeling that Intel will have to move to a new manufacturing node to get the best out of ABT, and we will be able to see the feature on more conventional CPUs.