Issue with CPU Speed Reading

A little bit of a weird issue with multiple reading from different programs.

In my BIOS, my speed is set to 400 x 7 = 2.8 ghz
In CPU-Z, my speed shows up at 2.8 ghz for 2 seconds then drops down to 2.4 ghz
In Everest Home, my speed shows up at 3.6 ghz
In the futuremark web browser (the one that shows up after you finish the test) my speed shows up at 3.6 ghz

Now I'm really confused on why I would get different reading all over the place. Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

EDIT: CPU-Z shows my multiplier as 6 instead of 7. I disabled the P45 speedstep in BIOS.

Did you disable C1E in the bios? That needs to be disabled as well as Speedstep.

I'll check that and get back to you, although I'm pretty sure it's disabled.

It won't hurt anything. Load the CPU w/ a program like Prime95. It should stay pegged at x7.

It's just a power saving feature. It won't slow you down.

Some programs like Everest calculate your final speed incorrectly. They use this formula:

reported_FSB_speed X default_multiplier = final_cpu_speed

instead of:

reported_FSB_speed X actual_multiplier = final_cpu_speed

They do this so that that they always report 1 value. If they used the actual multi it would jump around, and they wanted to avoid that since it produces a report and isn't in real-time.

CPU-Z is real-time, and you should trust it over the other programs.

That makes alot of sense, because 400 x 9 (default) = 3600.

I'll double check the bios setting though.

Disabled C1E in the BIOS and that fixed it.

Thanks guys, currently sitting at 2.8ghz and I'm sure 3ghz is within reach.

I ran prime for a couple of hours, and my temps get to around 60C, how high can these go without long term problems?

As long as it's stable I think your fine, but I like to keep the 65nm quads under 70 (maybe up to 75) while running P95. They'll never get anywhere near that hot under normal usage.