Glorious1
Guru
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2014
- Messages
- 1,211
I've read the recommendation from several of the glitterati on this board not to get low-power CPUs. The argument is the high-power ones work faster and do more, but they all use the same low power when idle.
I don't have any knowledge to challenge that, but I am curious. An analogy with cars comes to mind. Think of a Honda Fit/Jazz vs. a monster pickup truck or Maserati. Both use no gas when parked, but the truck and Maserati either carry a lot more or get you there a lot faster.
Of course, the truck and sports car use a lot more gas than the Honda Fit to get you from point A to point B. And it's the gas used per distance traveled that we're concerned about, not how much is used while parked.
So the question is really about efficiency. Do low-power CPUs, or any of them, do calculations and push bits around more efficiently than high-power CPUs? Granted that a given task would take longer, but do they use less power to get it done?
I don't have any knowledge to challenge that, but I am curious. An analogy with cars comes to mind. Think of a Honda Fit/Jazz vs. a monster pickup truck or Maserati. Both use no gas when parked, but the truck and Maserati either carry a lot more or get you there a lot faster.
Of course, the truck and sports car use a lot more gas than the Honda Fit to get you from point A to point B. And it's the gas used per distance traveled that we're concerned about, not how much is used while parked.
So the question is really about efficiency. Do low-power CPUs, or any of them, do calculations and push bits around more efficiently than high-power CPUs? Granted that a given task would take longer, but do they use less power to get it done?