Thermal Velocity Boost

The Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) concept made its first debut with the 8th generation Coffee Lake-H series and is now the de facto single-core boost clock that is being advertised in Intel's marketing materials. Put simply, TVB is an opportunistic overclock that increases clock speeds by 200 MHz if the operating temperature is 65 °C or less and if enough turbo power budget is available. It works in conjunction with Turbo Boost Max, now in its 3rd iteration, which identifies the processor's fastest cores and directs workloads accordingly. TVB is supported on all 10th gen Comet Lake-H SKUs except the Core i5-10400H and the Core i5-10300H.

Intel's press materials do not go into a whole lot detail about TVB, but we could manage to gather some additional information post the launch brief.

TVB can boost up to 200 MHz for the 8-core Core i9-10980HK and this for the top two cores identified by Turbo Boost 3.0 when the temperature is below 65 °C. Between a temperature range of 65 °C and 85 °C, TVB can allow only a 100 MHz boost. In case of the 6-core Core i7-10850H, TVB allows for only a 100 MHz boost and that too, only if the temperature is below 65 °C. We understand that TVB may not boost further in this SKU if the temperature is above this threshold. For cores other than the top-performing ones, Turbo Boost 2.0 comes into play. From what we gather, TVB and Turbo Boost 3.0 do not need a separate driver or software enablement.

Intel would not give us the exact charts, but we believe that in case of the Core i9-10980HK, the max boost would be 5.3 GHz with TVB, 5.1 GHz without TVB but with Turbo Boost 3.0, 4.9 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0, and 4.4 GHz all-core boost. Similarly, for the Core i7-10850H, the max boost will be 5.1 GHz with TVB, 5 GHz without TVB but with Turbo Boost 3.0, 4.8 or 4.9 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0, and about 4.4 GHz (?) all-core boost.