[MakeLV] Question on power usage of multicore CPUs

[Randy Kramer]

I don't see much traffic on the old LVLUG lists, so I thought I'd try asking 
my question here, first.

A few months ago, I got a really good deal on a motherboard for an AMD AM-3 
socket CPU.  ($15 after rebate.)

I had intentions of watching for a low power CPU with maybe 2 cores come on 
sale.  So far, almost everything I've seen on sale is rated for 95 watts, 
which is more than I'd like to use.  (Btw, 95 watts is the maximum rating for 
the board.)

So, I got to thinking--I don't think most software takes full advantage of 
multicore CPUs, so I'm guessing that even if I bought something with 4 or 
more cores, most of the time I'd be using only 1 or 2.

Thus, if I bought a 4 core CPU rated at 95 watts, most of the time I'd be 
using significantly less than 95 watts.  

I realize there would be some logic that would be energized on those cores 
even if not used, as well as more "infrastructure" logic than if I had a one 
or two core CPU, but I'd still expect substantially less power usage.

Am I way off base?

Randy Kramer