[mythtv-users] Superserver

[Raymond Wagner]

  On 8/25/2010 07:09, David Watkins wrote:
> On 25 August 2010 02:27, Raymond Wagner<raymond at wagnerrp.com>  wrote:
>>   On 8/24/2010 20:24, Robert Johnston wrote:
>>> You are aware that TDP stands for "Thermal Design Power", which is a
>>> description of the maximum amount of HEAT output by a particular device. So
>>> a 100W TDP CPU will have to have a heatsink capable of dissipating at least
>>> 100 watts of heat. It also means that a 100W TDP processor may (will
>>> probably) use more than 100W of power, as 100W of it are being wasted as
>>> heat.
>> I don't understand this.  The power has to go somewhere, it has to do
>> something.  A processor doesn't produce light, noise, or physical work, all
>> that's left is heat.
> ... and entropy
>
> which (I think) proposes that increasing or decreasing the amount of
> randomness in a set of data requires a transfer of energy.

Entropy is not a form of energy that you can convert to.  It is a 
measurement of irrecoverably lost energy.  Lost energy is just another 
term for disorder.  Thermodynamics states that entropy must always 
increase, so by performing a calculation and producing something useful, 
energy must be lost to compensate.  That energy will be lost as heat, 
and even though you are producing a thermal potential that you can draw 
energy out of, you will never recover the full amount.