Motherboard manufacturers prefer the 'Unlimited PL2' route, because it puts their results at the top of benchmark lists.
...and so does every desktop user, no? If the cooling system can "take the heat", then the CPU should run as fast as it can. It seems like the whole point of this premature throttling is only to meet some stupid marketing spec, and the motherboard manufacturers are wise enough to ignore it.
I think the issue is that you might equate the TDP with power consumption and think that a particular chip is more efficient than another. Or that a smaller PSU would be sufficient. I would have expected a motherboard set to "auto" would use the Intel spec to hit the advertised TDP, not max everything out and end up at 3x that until it had to thermally throttle.
I think both Intel and the motherboard manufacturers are to blame: Intel for using a marketing number that won't be hit under most configurations, and the motherboard manufacturers for having over-agressive and unexpected defaults.
> If the cooling system can "take the heat", then the CPU should run as fast as it can.
The issue is what happens to benchmarks, because removing the power limit makes the limit thermal, which makes performance proportional to the efficacy of the cooling solution and other variables like the ambient temperature in the room.
There will also be variation between individual processors of the same model, since it's always been the case that some would run warmer or cooler, but now that affects out-of-the-box performance. (And with manufacturers sending chips to reviewers for testing, which ones are they likely to choose?)
This is a pretty big deal if you're a business wanting to buy the kind of small form factor desktops with cooling solutions that hew close to the official TDP numbers but you're looking at benchmarks done in larger cases with gamer-typical cooling solutions. Or people buying always-on home devices with more stringent cooling or efficiency requirements. Really anyone who wants to know how the processor would perform in an environment that it isn't permitted to continuously dissipate 180W.
The issue is what happens to benchmarks, because removing the power limit makes the limit thermal, which makes performance proportional to the efficacy of the cooling solution and other variables like the ambient temperature in the room.
There surely is an upper limit? Would cooling the CPU with liquid nitrogen, for example, make it perform appreciably faster even at the same stock clock?
There would be an upper limit, but where is it? Maybe something less exotic than liquid nitrogen (like water cooling), though who knows without trying it. Maybe even a solid air cooler could do it, or at least get within a few percent of it.
The concern is that a lot of the cooling solutions that are common in the market could be substantially worse than that, or even motherboards that can't supply that much power and are correspondingly configured not to.
It implies that a small form factor machine may be a lot slower even if it has the same processor in it.
The desktop user may be less happy if the lifetime of their processor is 1 year instead of >10. Thats the other downside of running hot: shorter time to failure.
In all these cases the CPU isn't going over its designed temperature limit, so unless Intel are messing with those numbers too now (AFAIK the expected lifetime is based on continuous running at the maximum temperature, like many other electronic components are rated at) the lifetime won't be shorter than the spec.
(I'm curious if these new CPUs based on smaller processes do have a measurably shorter lifetime in practice; a lot of people can probably tell stories of decade-old Prescotts and such which are still in active use.)
Longevity is, supposedly, also dependant on current, and hence voltage. Unfortunately processor reviews don't consider the lifetime of the product, as that is probably only known to the manufacturer
...and so does every desktop user, no? If the cooling system can "take the heat", then the CPU should run as fast as it can. It seems like the whole point of this premature throttling is only to meet some stupid marketing spec, and the motherboard manufacturers are wise enough to ignore it.