Chipmakers Admit Your Power May Vary 138
Dylan Knight Rogers writes to mention a News.com story discussing the realities of chip power consumption. From the article: "Assessing only pure performance is passe. The debate these days is about performance-per-watt, which seems like it should be a simple miles-per-gallon type of calculation. However, miles are miles, and gallons are gallons. There's no one simple way to measure processor performance, and measuring the amount of power output by today's chips is proving just as difficult."
Re:It's not just the CPU (Score:5, Interesting)
Because of advances in engineering and design, engines are far more powerful and efficient now than they were in the early 90s. Cars have far better aerodynamics. However, gas mileage has not improved. In many cases it's gotten worse since the 80s. Likewise 0-60 times haven't improved much.
So what happened? Instead of improving the performance of your average family sedan, auto makers have added better armor, more air vents, more lights, DVD players, and more plush materials. Everything is safer and more comfortable now than it was in the 80s and 90s.
My 86 Camry will beat your 2007 Camry in a drag race and it will get better fuel mileage. But for a 500 mile trek across California or a bad accident? I know which one I'd prefer.
Likewise, my Pentium 4 has 16000 times more ram than my first computer (a C64,) and 256 times the ram of my first 486 (side note: how long before someone informs me of the amount of ram my 486 had?)
My 486 could write a document just as easily and with as much style as my P4. But it couldn't write a document while I was watching a subtitled MP4 movie in another window, listening to music, burning a DVD, and downloading hot lesbian pr0n from bit torrent. And it certainly couldn't do all that on dual 20 inch widescreen flat panel displays.
Sure, software is more bloated. But like the 2007 Camry (available wherever fine cars are sold,) after a long day your ass is going to be a lot more comfortable.
Re:I would like to know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Raise the clock and the charge time on the traces goes down, means you need a higher voltage. Think of filling a bottle with a small hose. If you want to fill a single bottle faster you have to increase the pressure [voltage]. Also raises the current overall if you keep it up. This is why overclockers often have to raise the voltage of the part they are OC'ing.
Raise the clock and more transistors are switching per second. Switching generates heat because you have two inputs and one output [among other reasons]. The energy can't just disappear and you can't keep increasing the current otherwise the traces melt. Fortunately the energy is turned into heat
Now, if you ran a circuit at twice the clock but did the same amount of work and shut it off at T=0.5 would you still use more power? [homework question].
Tom