Wouldn't it be safe to assume that debating over pennies in electricity in a CPU/Overclocking forum is silly? This is an enthusiast board, not Greenpeace.
Besides, you can't ignore the fact you can still OC and leave Speedstep and other power-saving features enabled, so that you are not clocked higher when not using your machine.....
There is nothing wrong with wanting an efficient machine, but you shouldn't be buying i7 or 4+ GHZ AMD chips if that is the case.
You can have both, it just requires patience and the correct knowledge of the chip you are pushing.
Having from 40W to 60W idle power consumption is a given on a desktop scenario, we cant really change that. But what we can change is the power consumption on our real case scenarios, adapting the Pstates and voltages to our needs.
That's why I emphasize so much on developers making software to change Pstates in real time. Being able to load a profile suited for your particular needs, either aiming at more performance at same power envelope or pushing the power consumption down at the same performance, is really what tweaking your CPU is all about. I'm a fan of the rule "max OC on stock voltage/max UV under stock clocks", because there's where you will be closer to the overused phrase "free performance" or "less electricity bill" in this thread.
Say I want to render, ok that's fine, if I'm not time constrainted I would just load a 3.0ghz/1.0v profile (like some user did to their FX83xx) on all modules. If I want speed, I would load a 4.3 one (I think that's the point before Piledrivers start going whack with voltages/power consumption). If I want to play an Emulator and it wont scale past 2 cores, just crank up that first module to 4.5 while the rest are power gated and be done with it.
Either be efficiency, maximum performance or a compromise of both (like in my case), they are all valid when you decide to tweak your CPU. There are so many different needs in a CPU as many users, sadly we have to deal with a limited repertoire of CPU choices, and if our particular use doesnt fit in a certain CPU decision, tweaking it comes handy, no doubt about it.
PS: And that is the fun in buying an overkill machine for your current needs. Being able to downscale in performance is never a bad thing, specially if it can yield you more efficiency in the long run. The problem is when you are forced to OC your machine to reach your performance target, you are forced to deal with higher power consumption, higher temps, less effciency overall, etc.
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