WARNING: Your system may lock up as a result of FID/VID change, overclocking/over-voltage of the "unlocked" CPU, as well as tweaking with CPU-specific settings. The developers team, the RightMark Gathering and/or iXBT.com are not responsible for any damage that may result from the usage of this utility!
Features
- Realtime CPU clock and CPU/OS load level monitoring (with logging).
- Detection of virtually any form of CPU clock throttling.
- Dynamic CPU performance state transitions (realtime adjustment of CPU multiplier, FID, and voltage level, VID) "on demand" on supported CPU models.
- Advanced CPU-specific power management settings for AMD K7/K8 and Intel Pentium M/Pentium 4/Xeon CPU families.
- Support for multi-processor (SMP/HT) systems.
Supported Environment
Processors
Current release of RMClock utility implements the determination of CPU frequency, load and throttling level on:
- AMD K7 (Athlon/XP/MP, Duron, Sempron) and K8 (Athlon 64/FX, Opteron 64, Sempron) family CPUs.
- Intel Pentium II/Celeron, Pentium III/Celeron, Pentium M, Pentium 4/Celeron (Northwood and Prescott cores), Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, Xeon (Prestonia and Nocona cores).
In addition, dynamic FID/VID transitions are supported on:
- AMD Athlon 64/FX, mobile Athlon 64 featuring AMD Cool`n'Quiet technology.
- Mobile or Low-Power Desktop AMD Athlon XP featuring AMD PowerNow! technology.
- Intel Pentium M (Banias/Dothan) featuring Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology.
- Intel Xeon (Nocona) featuring Enhanced Intel SpeedStep (DBS) technology.
RMClock utility will run on unsupported CPU models as well, however, in this case, most of its functionality will be unavailable.
Motherboards
- For AMD Athlon 64 family CPUs, a motherboard certified for AMD Cool`n'Quiet technology is highly recommended. RMClock is not guaranteed to run stable on a non-certified motherboard. For a list of motherboards supporting AMD Cool`n'Quiet technology, visit the AMD web site.
Operating systems
- RMClock is designed for a 32-bit Windows NT-class OS, i.e., it should run on Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server with no problems. 64-bit Windows versions, as well as Win9x family OS are not supported.
Usage Notes
- RMClock utility uses two different methods to measure CPU load level. The first method utilizes CPU-specific performance monitoring counters and represents actual CPU load, i.e., the amount of time that CPU spent in "awakened" state. The second value is reported by OS, in a manner similar to Task Manager. NOTE: Due to the differences in the nature of measurements and the detection accuracy, the displayed CPU Load values may not match.
- To enhance CPU load measurement precision (especially the OS-based one), the averaging technique is used. That is, each point indicates the average CPU load for a given period (100 ms by default).
- In Automatic Management mode, CPU performance states (defined by bus frequency multiplier, FID, and voltage level, VID) are changed automatically (ranging from Minimal to Maximal user-defined values) depending on current CPU load reported by CPU counters. The utility may change CPU FID/VID values as fast as 10 times per second by default. To prevent unnecessary performance state transitions, the CPU load level "noise filtering" technique is implemented, which is able to efficiently remove accident CPU usage level "spikes" (e.g., on a window opening).
- On a multi-processor (SMP) systems, RMClock is able to monitor CPU load and perform CPU performance states transitions independently for each CPU. On the other hand, CPUs with multiple logical processors in a single physical package (featuring Hyper-Threading technology) are treated as a single unit. The CPU and OS load levels are summated for all logical processor representing given physical processor.
- There're additional configuration options (tweaks) available besides the application's user interface. For a list of these options and their possible values, see RMClock.reg file. To apply these settings, just double-click this file to update the program registry settings.
Compatibility
CPU Power Management drivers/software
RMClock is compatible with AMD Cool`n'Quiet / PowerNow! and Enhanced Intel SpeedStep software. There's no need to uninstall existing processor driver, however, for best effect, the power-saving features of this driver should be disabled when the driver is used together with RMClock in auto-management mode. That is, current power scheme (in Windows control panel) should be set to "Home/Office Desk" or "Always On".
Performance analyzing software
Since RMClock relies upon CPU-specific performance monitoring counters (PMC) to monitor the CPU usage level, compatibility issues are possible with application performance analyzing software like Intel VTune, which uses the same counters to monitor the processor-specific performance events. Therefore, you should exit RMClock utility before using this kind of software.
Benchmarking software
As with any power-saving features, the auto-management feature of RMClock should be disabled before running benchmarking software, otherwise you may get incorrect benchmark results.
Revision History
RMClock Version 1.3
- New (tabbed sheet) user interface design.
- Added CPU clock, load level and FID/VID monitoring graphs with text file logging feature.
- Added CPU load level determination on Intel Pentium II/III/M/4 family CPUs.
- Added throttled CPU clock determination for any forms of CPU clock throttling.
- Added support for multi-processor (SMP/HT) systems (for both monitoring and FID/VID management features).
- Added support for "mobile" and "server" (DBS) Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology on Intel Pentium M and Xeon (Nocona) CPUs.
- Added CPU-specific power management related settings for AMD K7, AMD K8 and Intel Pentium M/Pentium 4/Xeon family CPUs (for advanced users only!).
- Added Minimal FID/VID determination and display (where available).
- Added CPU power management features presence and status display.
- Improved CPU/OS load measurement with load-averaging feature.
- Improved FID/VID control logic with CPU load level "noise filtering" (spike removal) feature.
- Changed default process priority to Realtime priority class.
- Bugfixed CPU usage determination after resume from Hibernate mode.
- Bugfixed program settings saving upon termination of Windows session (shutdown/logoff).
RMClock Version 1.2
- New UI and popup menu design, including animated icon feature.
- Support for mobile/low-power desktop AMD Athlon XP CPUs featuring AMD PowerNow! technology.
- Improved FID/VID control logic.
- Additional stabilization-related tweaks.
- Additional CPU-specific tweaks for AMD Athlon 64 and Athlon XP family CPUs.
- Bugfixed 'Restore Defaults on Exit'.
AMD64CLK Version 1.1
- Realtime CPU usage determination using the CPU performance counters.
- FID/VID values locking (preventing from being changed).
- FID/VID automatic management (based on the CPU usage).
- Additional configuration options.
AMD64CLK Version 1.0
Feedback
Please, send you feedback to Dmitri Besedin, the main program developer.