ESX and Intel Turbo Boost
Hi everyone,
I‘m wondering how ESX uses the Intel Turbo Boost. I have an ESX server with two Intel Silver 4110 (8x 2.1GHz)
I understand how Intel Turbo Boost works in normal computer.
But I think my ESX does not use it at all. Situation: Only one VM with one Core. Windows Server 2016 installed. So only one Core of the hardware CPU is used but frequency is stick to 2.1GHz in Windows Task Manager when I use 100% CPU inside the VM. ESX host performance shows 2.2GHz used and 31GHz free, so there is only one hardware Core busy.
Do I need to enable Intel Turbo Boost somehow?
Thanks
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Check if turbo is enabled in the bios
Turbo mode is enabled and performance mode is set to max performance in BIOS
Please see my other comment... Max. Performance is the problem. Turbo-boost provides more power to one/some cores, but that power must be saved on other cores.
Max. Performance will have all cores running at the barest minimum turbo-boost mode because it is at its maximum TDP without any powersavings!
Your best bet is to set BIOS to OS Controlled, or whatever the equivalent is, and let ESX handle the sleep states.
What system is this in? Is this a homebrew setup? IBM? Dell? What model?
Its a new Cisco C220 M5 including some Cisco bugs :) Maybe I found another one here.
I‘m testig this server for datacenter use in future.
Afaik you'll not see the core frequency in Windows, but ESXi/vCenter should give correct performance metrics.
Just make sure that Cisco is configured properly (there's a best practice guide from Cisco), you need to enable the powersaving features like C3 states, and it should be configured for "OS controlled" performance mode.
ESXi should set for Balanced Performance (as per VMware best practice guide) - i get the full turbo boost out of it like that on Cisco UCS blades.
You need deep C-States to get max. TB frequencies, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9GWK8Pn8ec, also, a guest will never show you an accurate frequency without vPMC being enabled for it.