- MSR modification may void your CPU's (or system board's) warranty. Proceed with care. I'm not responsible for any destruction caused by this article.
- MSR address (greatly) differs from CPU to CPU. Check your own CPU's MSR address using Intel's documentation.
- Only tested on Intel i7-8550U (Kaby Lake R).
- This article is translation of this article. If you can understand Korean, I recommend reading that article, not this.
On Windows, Intel XTU can be used for modifying turbo-boost parameter and TDP related settings. But on other OSes, there are no specific (user friendly) tools available. In this article, I will directly modify MSR (Model-Specific Registers) to achieve similar effect.
There are many CPU models. We call them by their friendly names - such as 'Core i7' - but this is not enough in this article. In fact, some CPUs are very different even if they are named after same friendly name. Some CPUs are named different, but they are actually same varient of other CPU. In Intel, they distinguish between CPU using CPU family and model. For example,
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | less
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 142
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz
stepping : 10
...
Note that /proc/cpuinfo returns CPU family and model by decimal.
In Linux, you will need msr-tools, and msr kernel module. You may want to insert kernel module automatically by adding appropriate configuration. (e.g., echo msr > /etc/modules-load.d/msr.conf in Arch Linux)
You can read from MSR with rdmsr 0x(address) and write to MSR with wrmsr 0x(address) 0x(value). When reading, you can specify bitmasks by -f 15:0 (from bit 0 to bit 15, in reverse).
My CPU has MSR_RAPL_POWER_UNIT at address 606h.
606H MSR_RAPL_POWER_UNIT (RO)
3:0 = Power unit (W) = 1/2^(decimal)W - def: 0.125W
12:8 = Energy unit (J) = 1/2^(decimal)J - def: 0.00006103515625J
19:16 = Time unit (sec) = 1/2^(decimal)sec - def: 0.0009765625sec
These units are needed to modify existing values.
Now the fun part begins, MSR_PKG_POWER_LIMIT has package power limit variables.
610H MSR_PKG_POWER_LIMIT (RW)
14:0 = Pkg power limit = Powerunit * decimal
15:15 = Pkg power enabled (bool)
16:16 = Pkg clamping limit (bool)
23:17 = Pkg power limit time window = 2^(21:17 bit) * (1.0 + (23:22 bit)/4.0 ) * Timeunit
46:32 = Pkg power limit 2 = Powerunit * decimal
47:47 = Pkg power 2 enabled (bool)
48:48 = Pkg clamping limit 2 (bool)
55:49 = Pkg power limit time window = 2^(53:49 bit) * (1.0 + (55:54 bit)/4.0 ) * Timeunit
63:63 = MSR lock (bool)
If bit 63 is 0, those values can be changed by writing to 0x610 register. You may change package power limit to higher TDP, and prolong limit time window to increase your processor's performance (if you are not throttled by thermal throttling).
If MSR_PLATFORM_INFO[28] is 1, you can also change turbo boost limit variable.
CEH MSR_PLATFORM_INFO
15:8 = Maximum non-turbo (RO) bool
28 = Programmable ratio limit for turbo (RO) bool
29 = Programmable TDP limit for turbo (RO) bool
30 = Programmable TJ offset (RO) bool
1ADH MSR_TURBO_RATIO_LIMIT (RO if MSR_PLATFORM_INFO[28]=0, else RW)
7:0 = Ratio 1C
15:8 = Ratio 2C
23:16 = Ratio 3C
31:24 = Ratio 4C
Using above information, I could change MSR on my processor - i7-8550U.
Since this processor is limited to 37 boost ratio when all 4 cores are being used, I changed limitation to 40. Also, I changed 23W limit to 25W with longer (1073741824 seconds) boost duration.
From
610H
42819800dd80b8h
00000000 01000010 10000001 10011000
00000000 11011101 10000000 10111000
14:0 = Pkg power limit = 10111000b (184d, b8h) = 23
15:15 = Pkg power enabled (bool) = 1b
16:16 = Pkg clamping limit (bool) = 1b
23:17 = Pkg power limit time window = 11b(3d) 01110b(14d) = 2^14*(1+3/4)*(1/2)^10=28
46:32 = Pkg power limit 2 = 110011000b (408d, 198h) = 51
47:47 = Pkg power 2 enabled (bool) = 1b
48:48 = Pkg clamping limit 2 (bool) = 0b
55:49 = Pkg power limit time window = 01b(1d) 00001b(1d) = 2^1*(1+1/4)*(1/2)^10=0.00244140625
63:63 = MSR lock (bool) = 0b
1ADH
25252828h
7:0 = Ratio 1C = 40
15:8 = Ratio 2C = 40
23:16 = Ratio 3C = 37
31:24 = Ratio 4C = 37
To
610H
42819800FC80C8h
00000000 01000010 10000001 10011000
00000000 11111100 10000000 11001000
14:0 = Pkg power limit = 11001000b (200d, c8h) = 25
15:15 = Pkg power enabled (bool) = 1b
16:16 = Pkg clamping limit (bool) = 0b
23:17 = Pkg power limit time window = 11b(3d) 11110b(30d) = 2^30*(1+3/4)*(1/2)^10=1073741824
46:32 = Pkg power limit 2 = 110011000b (408d, 198h) = 51
47:47 = Pkg power 2 enabled (bool) = 1b
48:48 = Pkg clamping limit 2 (bool) = 0b
55:49 = Pkg power limit time window = 01b(1d) 00001b(1d) = 2^1*(1+1/4)*(1/2)^10=0.00244140625
63:63 = MSR lock (bool) = 0b
1ADH
28282828h
7:0 = Ratio 1C = 40
15:8 = Ratio 2C = 40
23:16 = Ratio 3C = 40
31:24 = Ratio 4C = 40
turbostat reported updated TDP limit and duration, and changed turbo boost ratio. I could not test real life performance difference, since my processor is heavily throttled by thermal throttling even at 15W TDP.