cpu battery issue

[csmaster2005]

I'm going to purchase a new laptop and had a quick question about it.

The cpu will be a dual core cpu, but was wondering if a 2 ghz would eat up that much more battery than a 1.8ghz

to my knoweldge, the cpu doesn't clock to it's capacity unless it needs it, so as long as I'm not tying up all the CPU usage, it shouldn't make a difference correct?

 

[MichaelD]

Depending on what version/stepping the CPU is and any differences in the chipsets b/t laptops, there could be no difference or a large difference.

But, being that you're looking at new laptops, I'm assuming you're looking at a "System Builder" type application ala Dell or HP where you use the drop-down list to select the parts.

In that case, most probably, the CPUs will be from the same family; but power consumption will still scale linearly. 2.0GHz uses more juice than 1.8GHz. Can't get around that. At idle, the diff will be negligible, if not unmeasurable. Fully loaded though, the 2.0GHz will use more juice.

 

[csmaster2005]

it's a dell vostro

CPUS are maybe at full capacity ~10% of the time a computer is used (just throwing that out there)
but if I'm doing some mild browsing most of the time, the extra consumption should be negligible correct?
thanks