Reply To: Noob Question: How to get blender to use more of my CPU?

[Adrian Bellworthy]

I wouldn’t recommend overclocking the CPU.

By overclocking you will generate more heat in the CPU. Unless you upgrade your CPU cooling. DON’T RISK IT.

I just noticed on your screen grab you are running at 3.98GHz.

From Intel:

Performance

Intel® Thermal Velocity Boost Frequency – 5.30 GHz

# of Cores – 8

# of Threads – 16

Processor Base Frequency – 2.40 GHz

Max Turbo Frequency – 5.30 GHz

Cache – 16 MB Intel® Smart Cache

Bus Speed – 8 GT/s

*Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Frequency – 5.10 GHz 

TDP – 45 W

Configurable TDP-up Frequency – 3.10 GHz

Configurable TDP-up – 65 W

*Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 identifies the best performing core(s) on a processor and provides increased performance on those cores through increased frequency as needed by taking advantage of power and thermal headroom. Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 frequency is the clock frequency of the CPU when running in this mode.

So…

I should have looked this up before….

Basically if you have the turbo boost software your CPU will increase / decrease performance based on temperature and power consumption.

The best option if you have access to fan speed and power tuning you could increase these. Fan speed is usually fairly low to reduce noise and by default power consumption is normally set to environmentally friendly mode not performance mode.

And in turn this will give you more juice from the CPU but obviously the longer you are using it the hotter it will get and more power you will use.

I suggest monitor the temperature and power consumption as is for now. Then when performance begins to dip increase slightly, monitor, and increase slightly again. Don’t just whack it up to the max. You could burn out the fan motor and not realize it..

Start with the fan speed but monitor power consumption. The power consumption is the total power of all components combined, so if you increase fan speed you may not actually get “increased fan speed” because your power consumption is at the limit.

Hope I have explained this well enough.