[Tfug] "Downgrading" ("underclocking?") processors

[Zack Williams]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 8:03 PM, Bexley Hall <bexley401 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Would you use this technique on an *enterprise* server?

Nope.  On a HTPC or similar, sure.

Most CPU's these days have various power modes and can control their
supply voltage.   To save on power, they'll try to spend most of the
time asleep or in similar low-power states with portions of the chip
turned off.  They also will have varying speeds depending on the
power/heat dissipation Intel, for example, can sell a chip that
supports 7W, 10W and 13W power modes, with the vendor determining
which they want to use:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6655/intel-brings-core-down-to-7w-introduces-a-new-power-rating-to-get-there-yseries-skus-demystified

What you might look at are the Lower power SKU's - for example, Intel
will sell a desktop -T suffixed chip:

http://ark.intel.com/products/family/75023/4th-Generation-Intel-Core-i7-Processors/desktop

or a laptop -U suffixed chip:

http://ark.intel.com/products/family/75023/4th-Generation-Intel-Core-i7-Processors/desktop

Or a xeon -L suffixed chips:

http://ark.intel.com/products/family/78581/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-v3-Family/server

which have a much lower wattage than the other chips in the series.

Given a suitably massive cooler, passively dissipating a 30-45W load
shouldn't be difficult.

- Zack