alt Hacker NewsNice project, but would it not be more rational to have your system running underclocked/undervolted at the optimal perf/watt at all times, with an optional boost to max performance for a time critical task? Running it away from the optimum might save on instant consumption but increase your aggregate consumption.
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Thanks! That's an excellent point. You're right that there's likely a sweet spot that would be more efficient overall than aggressive throttling.
The current implementation uniformly sets max frequency for all 128 cores, but I'm working on per-core frequency control that would allow much more granular optimization. I'll definitely measure aggregate consumption with your suggestion versus my current implementation to see the difference.
It's well established that completing the same task more slowly at a lower clock rate is actually less energy-efficient.
How is it with modern overclocked by default cpus? If you cut power use by 50% you still get 80% of the performance?
Bring back the "turbo" button on the front of the PC.