Re: Kernel thoughts of a Linux user

From: Paulo Marques <pmarques@grupopie.com>
To: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@linux01.gwdg.de>
Cc: Chris Friesen <cfriesen@nortelnetworks.com>,
	Tomas Carnecky <tom@dbservice.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Kernel thoughts of a Linux user
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:02:59 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <419DE0F3.9000806@grupopie.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0411182216160.16465@yvahk01.tjqt.qr>

Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>>>So they could make themselves a favor and run something like seti@home.
>>
>>That does consume more energy than just sitting at idle.  I've seen some
>>estimates of how much it costs to run seti 24/7 rather than just sit idle, and
>>the price was something like $80/year.
> 
> 
> For CPUs which don't have some sort of speedstep, it does not matter.
> (Please correct me if I am wrong. It might be that HLT cycles are still more
> power-conservative even without speedstep than 24/7 on the FPU.)

You're wrong :)

Nowadays the power consumption of a CPU is more than the rest of the 
machine altogether (including hard disks, etc.).

On my P4 2.8GHz HT CPU, I've measured the power consumed by *the entire 
computer* more than doubling as the processor went from idle into 100% 
load.

Of course, this doesn't include a monster 3D card, is it could very well 
consume something close to the processor when doing a lot of 3D operations.

-- 
Paulo Marques - www.grupopie.com

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)