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

[John Hubbard]

On 02/19/2014 12:32 PM, Bexley Hall wrote:
> Hi Zack,
>
> On 2/18/2014 9:06 PM, Zack Williams wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 8:03 PM, Bexley Hall<bexley401 at yahoo.com>  
>> wrote:
>
>> 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:
>
> I'm not worrying about "designed from scratch".  There, I can look
> at my power and thermal budgets and "optimize to fit".  (though
> most of my hardware is ARM-based and an order of magnitude less
> power -- think hundreds of milliwatts.  Would you put a 40W PC
> in a box to generate sounds for your doorbell?  :> )
>
> Rather, what I am looking at is ways I can guide *others* to selecting
> suitable COTS kit that *they* can "downgrade" easily.


Who are these 'others' you envisioning doing this downgrade?  If its 
'mom and pop' I think you overestimate the average 'mom and pop'. 
(Unless they just pay someone else to do it.)  The only only people who 
have a good chance of downgrading a CPU are the same kinds of people who 
will be comfortable building their own machines in the first place.  I 
only see a few options:

A) Buy a generic machine off the shelf, figure out what socket/chipset 
it has and find an appropriate downgrade CPU to install.  Open the case, 
remove the heat sink, remove the CPU, install new CPU, reinstall heat 
sink, and close up case.  (Or pay someone else to do the above.)
B) Find a machine with the appropriate CPU already installed.  This is 
doable, but not going to happen for 'Hey dude, I just got a Dell'.
C) Build a machine from scratch with the right parts or pay someone else 
to do this.

Personally I think that C is going to be the best option.  If the end 
user can't build a machine themselves I don't think they've got much 
hope for downgrading the machine; A's out.  B might work, but I don't 
think that the high efficiency CPUs are particularly common from the big 
manufacturers.

-- 
-john

To be or not to be, that is the question
                 2b || !2b
(0b10)*(0b1100010) || !(0b10)*(0b1100010)
         0b11000100 || !0b11000100
         0b11000100 || 0b00111011
                0b11111111
         255, that is the answer.

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