A method and apparatus to alter acoustic noise induced by processor performance changes is disclosed. In one embodiment, a processor having one or more processor cores may execute instructions of one or more applications. The performance level (e.g., supply voltage and/or clock frequency) may be adjusted in accordance with workload demands. One or more of the applications executing on a core of the processor may exhibit periodic behavior, thereby causing periodic changes (e.g., increases) in the performance level. Performance monitoring may be conducted and may detect the periodic changes in the workload of the application. Responsive to the detection of the periodic changes, a power management unit may subsequently cause future performance level changes associated with the application to occur aperiodically.