[mythtv-users] CPU power (was Possible small HD frontend)

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sat Mar 22 16:27:12 UTC 2008


On Mar 22, 2008, at 9:56 AM, John Drescher wrote:
> What I do not see in this thread (the 7 responses I have today) is
> that usually by slowing the clock you can reduce the voltage of the
> processor by a considerable amount and this lowering of voltage will
> help reduce power by a considerable amount. Also I know for a fact
> that AMD systems (Opterons) will use considerably less power measured
> by a Kila-Whatt when at 1GHz at idle versus 2+ GHz idle.

That contradicts the intuitively unobvious info from another poster.  
As I said I find it hard to believe that slowing the clock does not  
reduce power consumption.

But the point was also made that at a slower clock a given job will  
take longer, and thus the *total* amount of energy may be the same or  
even higher.

In the physical world doing the same work faster usually takes more  
energy than to do it slower, not theoretically perhaps, but real-world  
factors like friction and thermal losses make it so.

beww



More information about the mythtv-users mailing list