Because wasting energy on a 4 GHz base clock is completely pointless (and so is your criticism) if you can adjust frequency as needed. 99% of the time 1GHz is sufficient. It’s only when you launch the browser that a faster CPU is useful, not when you’re reading through a website
> Because wasting energy on a 4 GHz base clock is completely pointless
That's not how base clock works. Base clock is not min clock. Base clock is what it's "guaranteed" to hit under sustained load if TDP is respected. It's the TDP clock. A 4ghz base clock CPU will still be far, far below that when idle.
The problem is that it ramps up by 250 Mhz increments, over a period of several seconds, and that can be extremely noticeable in some workflows.
I went from an 6700HQ (2.6 Ghz base) to a 10710U (1.1 Ghz base) and the difference is definitely there, and it's jarring enough to the point where I kind of regret it. It feels like a huge step backwards, despite the latter CPU being four generations ahead.
The first thing I notice in that comparison is that one chip is rated for a 45W TDP and other is 15-25W. While I think these cross-segment comparisons are exciting and show great progress, it's just not fair to the electrons.
This does not seem to be the case for my i7-8565U nor my older m3-something. The 8565U for example feels just as snappy as my desktop i7-6700, except it’ll throttle after about 30s.
With modern noteboock CPUs the base clock is only a loose indicator for how a CPU will perform. The CPU will still be downclocked and undervolted depending on the load.
