Processor Scaling

[Derek Broughton]

Ray Parrish wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:

>> Damn.  That's the problem with North America.  Power is so cheap, nobody
>> cares.
>>   
> Well, we're talking about something that runs on 5 volts, I don't think
> it's going to use enough extra poower to affect anything much...

Sheesh.  Just try watching your power meter when you are certain you have 
everything in the house turned off.   I would bet your desktop machine is 
running about 100W when not even under load.  If you run 24/7 your computer 
is using more electricity than my whole house.  

>>> I want
>>> the most erformance I can get at all times, so I now have it set to
>>> always run at 2gig.
>>>     
>>
>> And if your processor is now running at 20% instead of 50%, how exactly
>> have you improved performance?
>>
>>   
> What the hell are you talking about? I'm now running the processor at
> 100%, not 20%, where did you get that number from?

Load.  You're running it at its maximum _frequency_, but the processor 
itself will be idle some percentage of the time.  aiui, a processor running 
at 50% load and 100% frequency, is using more power than one at 100% load 
and 50% frequency.

> That was the problem, when I put a load on it, it would stay at half
> speed instead of kicking up to full speed when it was needed.

Then what you really need to figure out is why it isn't scaling properly.