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Posts: 230 | Thanked: 302 times | Joined on Oct 2009 @ Helsinki, Suomi (Finland)
#17
Originally Posted by DarkSkies View Post
This isn't so simple and in regard to how processors work this is a misguided logic.

Processor power consumption is closely connected to their clock frequency. An OC chip will consume/require higher ad hoc wattage input hence draining the battery faster (simply said, with aspects for example regarding erratic power management when working outside of factory specs and so on left alone). Google overclocking vs power consumption and perhaps electric current in regard to microprocessors.
OMAP3630 is rated for 1.2GHz so running it below that isn't exceeding factory specs. Higher frequency will naturally consume more power, but if you had read my message you'd probably realize that I wasn't arguing against that at all.

What I was saying is that it's possible to have CPU spend more time idling at low frequency/voltage by using relatively higher frequencies when necessary.

This is the reason why for example using the "conservative" CPU Freq governor in the Linux kernel, which adjusts frequency in steps correlating with the CPU load often uses more power than using the "ondemand" governor, which skips to highest frequency when load on the CPU reaches a certain treshold.

My N9, currently clocked to 1200MHz spends most of it's time at 300MHz and increase in battery consumption hasn't been noticeable. I'm not saying that it doesn't consume more power, just that the difference is so miniscule that it's hard to notice without proper measuring.
Code:
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq 
1200000
$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq 
300000
 

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