What is Intel TurboBoost?

If you’ve gone shopping for a new laptop anytime recently you may have heard of TurboBoost, a feature on the latest Intel Core i series processors. While the Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors that have TurboBoost proudly call your attention to that fact, it’s not as clear what that means — even to the salespeople in the computer areas of major retailers.

Personally, when we first heard about TurboBoost we thought back to the actual Turbo button that was on one of our first desktops, but in reality TurboBoost is much more advanced. TurboBoost delivers more power when you need it by delivering extra speed and scaling back down when you don’t need it to save on battery life. For example, if you are playing a game, or launching a program like AutoCAD that requires a lot of power, TurboBoost will give you more power for a better experience.

Intel took to the streets of Folsom California to find out if regular consumers knew what TurboBoost was and got some interesting responses in the video below.

Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t know what TurboBoost was, some of the technology salespeople Intel asked didn’t know either.

  • “Turbo Boost is kinda like a safe way to overclock your processor. It’s on the i3, i5 and i7,” said Kenneth at the Best Buy in Citrus Heights. (Accurate response except for the i3 part.)
  • “Turbo Boost? Yeah, I heard it’s on the i7. I know they’re making it for Windows 7 and the i3 and i5. They’re working on it now,” said Joe at the Costco in Roseville. (Again, not on the i3 and the i5 already is being sold at Costco.)
  • “You mean ReadyBoost? I don’t know what Turbo Boost is. I think you mean ReadyBoost,” said Ron at the Sam’s Club in Citrus Heights. (ReadyBoost is a disk cache component of Microsoft Windows and unrelated to Turbo Boost.)

You can check out the rest of the responses at Intel Free Press.

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