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Are CPUs really staying asleep for more than a second when the screen is on? I doubt that.

Back in 2009, Matthew Garrett measured a blinking cursor as costing 2W of power consumption. Presumably it'd be less of a big deal now, but it does show that UI updates on a low frequency can cost watts.

https://lwn.net/Articles/317923/

Computers have come a long way. My M1 Studio only draws about 40-50w under heavy load (like, running AI models or a full screen 3D game).

With modern CPUs and OSes most of the cores are parked most of the time. For example right now only 2 of my 16 cores are active.

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