Intel: Nehalem Turbo Mode almost as good as 2nd graphics card

Since many games are single threaded, the turbo mode will actually give perhaps a 10% increase in potential frames per second. Of course there’s a big difference between potential and actual frame rates and Piednoel said we can expect “single digit” gains for most games. Multithreaded games like Lost Planet and benchmarks like 3D Mark Vantage should see a dramatic difference from the 8 threaded Nehalem and Turbo Boost.

Turbo Boost could be considered a “self-overclocking” feature and in a properly cooled environment, Piednoel proclaimed that the results from Turbo Boost and traditional will be “almost as good as having a second graphics card.” Boy I bet AMD and Nvidia will love that comment.

Piednoel told us later what he meant, "In the case of 3Dmark 2006, overclocking QPI can give you "up to" the benefit of a 2nd graphic card, it is due to the dramatically increase in speed connect between the CPU and GPU."