On Sun, Jul 22, 2007 at 09:19:17PM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote:let me give you a real world example then, and the numbers I'm using are
ballpark the same as you'll find in a (mobile) core 2 duo datasheet, I
just rounded them a little so that the math works out nice.
power at full speed: 34W
power at half speed: 24W
power at idle: 1W
I have usually seen different numbers, for example:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/30430.pdf
Although this paper speaks about thermal design power instead of power
consumption, i suppose that it should be roughly equal.
For example Athlon 64 3700 (ADA3700AEP5AR):
2.4 GHz, 1.5 V -> 89 W
2.2 GHz, 1.4 V -> 72 W
2.0 GHz, 1.3 V -> 53 W
1.8 GHz, 1.2 V -> 39 W
1.0 GHz, 1.1 V -> 22 W
Even my measurement on PC (Athlon X2, VIA K8T890) of complete PC power
consumption shows that it is more efficient to be busy for 2 time units
on 1 GHz than be busy for 1 time unit and be idle for 1 time unit
on 2 GHz.
1 GHz:
both cores idle: 48 W
one core busy: 57 W
two cores busy: 66 W
2 GHz:
both cores idle: 54 W
one core busy: 78 W
two cores busy: 95 W