IntelUser2000
Elite Member
- Oct 14, 2003
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The CPU can contribute in how quickly it can ramp up and down alongside how quickly it can complete the short tasks waking the chip up from sleep, but otherwise agreed.
That concept is known as HUGI, or Hurry Up and Get Idle. A more technical term is Race to Halt.
It's also not as simple as that. For example, they said a low TDP chip like Atom, the fixed system power will dominate and there's less of an incentive to HUGI, because the CPU takes up less, and in that case its better to operate at an optimal frequency. But for high power chips the CPU can finish its task and lower total power use in a greater way.
This level will vary tremendously between loads. And if you are doing something that takes an hour, or playing games, this HUGI concept doesn't matter. In that case the only way to increase battery life is reducing the TDP significantly, which will also have a great impact on performance.
The average power used when they consider the sleep state in between bursty workloads is called, average power.
But people, especially enthusiasts don't like that term. Because the average power varies so much based on workload. TDP is nice, because its a fixed number we can rely on.
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