What about 2 workloads that both register 100% CPU usage, but one workload draws significantly more power and heats the CPU up way more? Seems like that workload is utilizing more of the CPU, more of the transistors or something.
So in Linux (and I assume elsewhere) there were attempts to figure out if the cost in time/power to move up to a higher power state would be worth the faster processing, or if staying lower power but slower would end up using less power because it was a short task.
I think the last chips I remember seeing numbers for were some of the older Apple M-series chips, and they were lightning fast to switch power levels. That would certainly make it easier to figure out if it was worth going up to a higher power state, if I’m remembering correctly.
Also swapping the governor was trivial and reliable. Modifying fan profiles has always been a bit of a struggle for me, with huge differences in hardware support, persistence etc.
jumping into action when browsing
This is why I sigh really hard when people talk about some measurement of FLOPS per second, as if it's the only thing that matters.
It matters. Perhaps it matters a lot for specific workloads. But most general workloads are integer-based.