Frequently Asked Questions About Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Technology

Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Technology identifies the best performing core(s) on a processor and provides increased performance on those cores through increasing frequency as needed by taking advantage of power and thermal headroom.

Due to production differences, processor cores vary in maximum potential frequency. Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 identifies up to two of the fastest cores on your CPU, known as “favored cores”. Then it applies a frequency boost to those cores (or that core) and directs critical workloads to them.

Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 doesn’t replace Turbo Boost 2.0. It’s another technology that provides an extra boost to the favored core(s). This helps benefit performance in lightly-threaded applications. Multi-threaded applications, by comparison, perform more work in parallel, scaling with more cores and features. Games and many common applications rely on high-frequency cores and benefit from Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0. As with other boost technologies, your CPU must be running below power, current, and temperature specifications for Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 to take effect.

No. No need to install any driver. Make sure you upgrade your Windows* OS to the latest version, and your processor supports Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0.

Yes. The Windows OS has native support for Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 and the feature is enabled automatically. The processor feature Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 is enabled in the hardware. The OS knows this feature of the processor and loads the native support. There's no need to enable in the BIOS or OS. Running a tool like Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel® XTU) can monitor the processor's Intel® Turbo Boost Max 3.0 frequency (settings are called Turbo Boost Power Max).