Turbo Boost PBO on AMD
A CPU clocks above its base frequency when thermal and power budgets allow — briefly "all cores", longer on one or two cores.
Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 (2011), Turbo Boost Max 3.0 (selected "best" cores), Thermal Velocity Boost. AMD: Precision Boost + Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO). Workloads: a game using only 4 cores gets them turbo'd higher. Variable performance makes benchmarking and thermal design more important than raw MHz ratings. Intel 13/14th gen suffered the "Turbo scandal" of 2024 — degradation over time from overly aggressive boost voltage.