From: "Mark Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 12:27:24PM -0400, Derek Broughton wrote: > > > As I understand it, speed-step is not supported because it's a typical > > kludge for Windows. Linux doesn't need it because it idles when not busy > > instead of using busy loops. > > It's not really a kluge - it's a fairly reasonable idea to drop the CPU > voltage and clock rate when it's not doing too much. Even if you're > idling properly when you need to it's still cheaper to run at a lower > voltage and clock (particularly voltage - the cost of a state transition > on a transistor is directly related to the voltage it runs at).
Then I must have completely misunderstood about speed-step - I didn't think it could do anything about voltage. And if you only slow the clock, can you really get any saving in a busy loop over the use of idle? derek
