From: tp923021@fir.canberra.edu.au (ben elliston)
Subject: CPU Temperature vs CPU Activity ?
Lines: 39

Organization: Compact Solutions, Canberra ACT Australia

 > This may be a very naive question but is there any
 > basis for the
 > claim that a CPU will get hotter when a
 > computationally intensive
 > job is running? My friend claims that there will be
 > little difference
 > in the temperature of an idle CPU and a CPU running a
 > computationally
 > intensive job.

From what I've seen in coursework, most CPUs never actually
"idle".  They will continue to service interrupts, etc.,
etc.  The clock will always be running at n Mhz no matter
what it's doing.

I suppose depending on the instruction, the CPU may use
circuitry which has more transistors than other
instructions, but if you consider the additional heat
generated by only a handful of additional, tiny resistors
and then spread that heat dissipation over the CPU's
packaging, the change in temperature to the immediate
environment (ie. the surface of the package) will be
negligible.

Cheers, Ben
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Ben J. Elliston
Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering)                     \\\//
University of Canberra                                             (@ @)
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Also:       ellib@cbr.cpsg.com.au
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