Core i5 Underpar.

[powertower]

I just purchased an MSI fx 603 laptop with the core i5 480m processor and had a few questions. First off in the BIOS there's a "System Performance" tab where I can set levels 1-5, as far as I'm aware this controls the turbo boosts oc %, would it be safe to raise it to 5 (default is 2) ? Also when looking at notebook checked my processor is supposed to calc superpi 1M in about 16 seconds. Mine took 36, any idea why it's performing underpar, here are the rest of the specs for you.

Core it processor 480m @2.6ghz
6gb ram
geforce gt 425m 1gb /w optimus
500gb hd
windows 7 home premium

Thanks!

[powertower]

Well don't I feel like an idiot now.... I had the "# of processors" set to 2 under msconfigs advanced options which was causing only one core to be active. I now get 3600 passmark score! well over the 2700 average listed on their site.

[ShyguyXPC]

just disable that option in msconfig, should default to use all the cores. my i7 920 is a quad with HT and I don't even have that enabled. usually shows up with all 4 cores (8 Threads) for most any applications or programs that would use them with that option disabled.

just be aware that turbo mode on Intel CPU's only clocks up the primary core (2 threads if HT is enabled), to the rated Turbo speed. It down clocks the additional cores. Turbo boost or whatever its called is mainly for Single Core Applications that need some extra speed/processing power.