Idle vs clock down...

[Haden]

I'm not sure about this, please correct me if I'm wrong.
While cpu goes idle it's temperature drops, also temperature is lower if cpu is running on low load, but is this temperature drop is as high as it would be with lower cpu clock?
Say 1Ghz cpu goes at 10% load, same cpu but at 100Mhz is running 100% load. Which is cooler? (say we unlocked the multiplier of cpu).
I gues 100Mhz at 100% would be much cooler.
If I'm right, I wonder about "soft" multiplier change (like SoftFSB for FSB), automated tool would clock down cpu if it's not used on full load, and clock it up when power is needed. User would keep cpu cooler, expand life time etc (actually posible only on unlocked AMD)
Also I'm not sure does clock generator alows to use very low clock settings.

Hope I wrote smth logical here

 

[Rand]

The 100Mhz processor at full load would most definitely be quite a bit cooler then the same processor running at 1GHz with only a sustained 10% load assuming all else was equal between the two.

That's a large part of the reason for such technologies as PowerNow, SpeedStep, LongRun etc. in the mobile domain which clocks down the processors and reduces voltage when processing requirements arent as high.

 

[Haden]

So for unlocked desktop cpu such clock down utility would be very usefull?
Is there something like that?
If there's no such program, but it's possible to create one, I think I'll give try (only problem I see is setting clock on different mobos).