HOLY CHRIST, this is bad even for me but had a bunch to say, fark!
Chapter 1:

DAMMIT, have to comment on this, as it's one of the more relevant threads on this subject I've ever seen kicked around in a nix forum anyway. Plus ... it's scary, actually somewhat understood what CwF said and learned some stuff from it. So thanks, Wiz10k for start and CwF for sharing some of your nix mad-scientist know how.

Just set it at performance ... who cares ? People that actually want to know how this stuff works, thus how to get best performance out of procs and learn to actually control it. Same reason I spent HUGE amounts of time getting to the point of being able to meaningfully compile my own kernel and mostly understanding what's important to dork with in config'ing it. The kernel is the heart of the gnu/Linux OS, the thing between the hardware/OS system and userspace. As are cpu(s) long considered the heart of any given computer system. While chips are built to stand a whopping, mostly end up in a landfill while they're still totally viable chips. Unless CwF see's them and wants to mess with it. Guy could probably daisy chain every proc that's ever been pitched in the trash together and have a setup capable of the greatest computing performance and highest speed processing that's ever existed.
Still without understanding this type of thing a person doesn't know how to get the full potential out of their chip(s) either. Can just end up wasting power, experiencing excessive heat and wear and tear, no net gains for doing it. Also don't care about power saving, do about pointless heat and first and foremost performance. Are plenty of things people can do to deal with getting more efficient power management while on battery. Many software packages which can adjust on-the-fly. Main one in my view would simply be turning down your screen brightness. The screen is a main culprit in sucking on a persons battery.
Anyway ... oddly agree with mostly everyone here. Everybody has a point, well ... in this case except for Head_on. His approach of just hey, I'll floor it, be sure to get my due performance. It's not anywhere close to being that simple. Someone can take it much further still than clock, interested parties of course do so, with info on the topic shared freely. Factors such as a processes priority, re-nice, cgroups or much other software made to control this, core pinning and core affinity(to take full/best advantage of a proc's caches, cores and threads), whether the kernel is config'ed to be preemptive or not, it's timer interrupt freq (1000hz vs 250)and such. The kernel is the gateway between everything that goes on in a gnu/Linux OS and the underlying hardware, stuff like even the actual quality of software-code someone is selecting to use. If the kernel someone is using isn't setup right, then they're losing out on performance could very well be (ARE)experiencing detriment for no gains just cause they never bothered learning what's what.
People who are obsessed with over-clocking. Which yeah is cool and I should've studied or used it more. It's friggin cool they can take a much cheaper cpu and make it run as fast or faster than one that's generally considered better. Big part of being an uncontrollable optimizer for me. Not just the cost savings. It's taking less and being able to rig it to outperform folks with so much more resources on-hand. Reason why I'm posting here, what CwF said made me realise something I knew but didn't sink in until right then. Yep ... someone can easily enough set this stuff by core (by disk drive, by network interface udev rules, etc etc)and tune it likewise. Just noting it and will certainly get around to dorking with it more but it's weird and nuts how much fine grained control the gnu/nix platform gives people!!! Woah !!!

Set xyz-power governor or freq on X-core, something else on others. Pin this or that process to using a specific core(s) and set limits on how much it can use. Friggin amazing how people managed coming up with all this !!!
I have a systemd service which executes a script, at an appropriate stage during boot ... in my case for this thing "multi-user.target". Just echo's varied adjustments for these type of things to files, sets ondemand, tunes it as best I've been able to understand in terms of performance benefits, though it's something somebody can find themselves endlessly fiddling with. Have done the setting a higher minimum freq, all of a simple echo value_someone_wants > ... to relevant file. Also dorked with some points in-between and capped my cores out at a freq lower than they were capable of just to avoid heat but didn't see the point of having a dual-core capable of @2.17ghz and never letting it use it. Settled on what I think is working best, for my hardware and usecase, at least for at the moment. Because this type of thing again is ... subject to change (with or w/o notice)... endlessly.

After monitoring activity on cores, how I tend to use this system in it's role. My cores are staying idling @ lowest freq ( 1ghz) over 90% of the time. So just adjusted things so that when they're under-load, they actually hit the gas pedal faster than in the ondemands defaults, stay on it bit longer but when not needed throttle down and therefor run cooler. Having them max'ed out won't do much of anything productive for me in this usecase. Needless heat(wear and tear), yes has to be whatever higher power consumption for the same workload but if you check cost of power even running an avg pc 24/7 year round ( and I have checked), it's negligible. Plus fan noise roaring during use etc etc and getting nothing out of that. Ninety-two percent of use time, it'd be a waste here. Again ... someone could get better gains out of a lower freq proc by tuning the kernel, over-clock, setting process core-affinity and priorities etc blah, than someone with a faster chip. Of course all of which takes effort to learn about.
However knowledge is power(or can be aggravation)too. I WANT to understand how this stuff works on deeper levels, thus possibly be able to tune for best performance and ideal efficiency etc blahblah. "Just floor it" is good enough for ignorant types. Like having a sports car, taking out on the road, whamming it top-end, without knowing where you're going, or in circles, using gas and putting needless wear and tear while not really accomplishing anything or getting where someone wants to go. Much less getting the most potential out of that hardware. Tuning an auto is a very technical matter too (or can be, again for people who bother to learn/understand what's involved. Have only ever vaguely researched that topic.) Can make all the difference in the world in terms of performance + benefit of having xyz-hardware to work with. In the right hands, it could blaze. Wth a Ford gremlin that can do 0-84mph in 2.2 seconds and gets 64mpg fuel efficiency ?!??!
What's learned on that one system/auto, is applicable to the next one someone buys. So clearly any knowledge and skill gained, can be a lifetime benefit.
Had to end with a mechanical analogy, yeah ... hope it's allowed too. No close, delete, afterall wouldn't want people posting stuff, having convo's and good natured banter in the offtopic section of a forum afterall !!! What's next, cats and dogs living in peace ?!?!?! OMG, what UNTHINKABLE madness is this !!??! Please close this immediately !!!

Anyway again ... need to stop coming around here, some of the nixers which hang around say interesting stuff and dang near compels me to add my 2 cents. Thanks to whomever too. Had actually never really considered the fan's impact, in terms of adding to power comsumption or poss inconveniece of noise. Can get on someone's nerves, being a fanatical tweaker do tend to notice whenever it kicks on and if doesn't die down in a reasonable time, yep ... time to pop open a terminal and see what's going on in "top".
Lol ... of noes ! Am confuzzled now. Can I discuss power consumption in relation to this subject ? Do I need to file for a permit or exemption perhaps ?!?! Go before a commitee ? Anybody got the passwd to the database which lays out all the nuances of exactly what and which thoughts-expressions are allowed in offtopic in this forum ?
