Frequency scaling survey

[Slim Joe]

2008/11/19, Owen Townend <owen.townend at gmail.com>:

Thanks again to all the replied.

[...]

> Work comp:
>
> % cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'model name'
> model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz
> model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz
> % cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
> 3000000 2667000 2333000 2000000
> 3000000 2667000 2333000 2000000

The results look strange. Does this mean that you can't throttle the
E8400 to less than 2GHz?

> Mythbox:
>
> % cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'model name'
> model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) Dual Core Processor 4850e
> model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) Dual Core Processor 4850e
> % cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies
> 2500000 2400000 2200000 2000000 1800000 1000000
> 2500000 2400000 2200000 2000000 1800000 1000000
>
> The 4850e has only a 45W envelope.. so except against the mobile procs
> it will probably be ahead in the 'most efficient at doing nothing'
> category.  Especially against my home desktop's Phenom 9600 (125W
> proc, not powered on at the moment).

I know xHz isn't everything when it comes to performance or power saving.
However, I was hoping to get results from a processor that can reduce its
speed down to Pentium II levels. I remember reading an article on FreeBSD
that shows the list of available frequencies going all the way down to
~300MHz.