BL460G6 / Disabling Cores & Turbo Boost

[chuckk281]

Scott was looking to disable some cores in a BL460 G6 blade that had a 6-core processor:

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Customer looking to purchase BL460G6 blades with 2 X5670 6-core at 2.93 GHz per core.  Can they use RBSU to disable 2 cores and run the remaining cores at 3.0+ GHz per core?  The RBSU users guide I am looking at gives options for enabling all, one, or half???   …6/2 = 3 cores…  Is there an updated RBSU that offers enabling 4 of 6 cores per proc?  Will setting up BIOS in this fashion give the desired result of 4 cores per proc at > 3.0 GHz per core?

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Dan provided the answer:

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They can’t use RBSU to disable 2 cores on a 6-core X5670 processor.    RBSU gives the same three options, whether it’s on a 4-core or 6-core processor: All cores enabled, half of the cores enabled, 1 core enabled. 

Disabling cores does change the maximum potential frequency that the remaining cores can achieve, but it doesn’t guarantee they’ll run at those max speeds; it just increases the odds that they could.

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Do you run processors with less than all the cores active? Can you tell us the application and results you have seen?