| Intel Turbo Boost hits laptop battery life | | | | application, which gives a visual indication of when |
| Laptop users with a new system based on Intel's | | | | Turbo Boost is active. |
| latest Core i5 and Core i7 chips may need to take | | | | Using this, it was easy to see that the benchmark - |
| care of what applications they choose to run when | | | | which uses OpenGL to display an animated graphic - |
| using it on battery power. | | | | was causing Turbo Boost to kick in and up the speed |
| The Core i5 and i7 processors introduced at the start | | | | of the chip from 2.53GHz to 2.79GHz. |
| of 2010 ship with a feature called Turbo Boost | | | | Unfortunately, it was staying at this speed all the |
| technology, designed to improve performance. It | | | | time, which seems to be the reason why the laptop |
| does this by ramping up the clock speed of the | | | | was only able to last for about 1 hour 30 minutes on |
| processor whenever the operating system calls for | | | | battery power, when the specifications quoted a life |
| maximum performance, as explained by this excerpt | | | | of up to 8 hours. |
| from Intel's web site; | | | | Sadly, Turbo Boost is not configurable by the end |
| However, it turns out that that Turbo Boost does | | | | user. Some laptops may allow you to turn it on or |
| this even if the laptop is operating from battery | | | | off in the Bios, but this was not the case with the |
| power, which can dramatically shorten the battery life | | | | evaluation laptop in question. |
| of the system, depending upon what it is being used | | | | Quoting from Intel's web site again; |
| for. | | | | Of course, users should expect that running |
| I found this out while testing some laptops for | | | | demanding applications will shorten battery life, but it |
| review that use the new Core i5 and Core i7 chips. In | | | | is entirely possible that Turbo Boost will kick in if you |
| order to gauge toshiba pa 3250 battery life, I use a | | | | are simply watching a DVD on your laptop, for |
| benchmark tool that keeps the system busy while | | | | example, and a battery life of 1 hour 30 minutes will |
| simultaneously tracking how long the laptop has been | | | | not be long enough to see the entire movie in many |
| running on battery power. | | | | cases. |
| Few laptops live up to the vendor's claims on battery | | | | So, while it may seem blindingly obvious that |
| life (as a general rule of thumb, take the maker's | | | | something like Turbo Boost would affect toshiba |
| quoted life and halve it), but one laptop in particular | | | | pa3399u-1bas battery life, that just leaves the |
| kept showing a battery score so much shorter than | | | | question of why on Earth Intel decided this would be |
| the specified figure that further investigation seemed | | | | a great feature for a laptop chip, and why is there |
| appropriate. | | | | no way to control its behaviour, other than disabling it |
| Looking at the processor, I downloaded an application | | | | in the Bios? |
| available from Intel, the Turbo Boost Monitor | | | | |