Higher frequency transistors require stronger electric fields. Stronger electric fields consume more power and produce more heat. CPUs are very small to benefi

Higher frequency transistors require stronger electric fields. Stronger electric fields consume more power and produce more heat. CPUs are very small to benefit from low latency between components, but the tradeoff is that they have very little surface area to transmit heat. The ultimate governor of CPU performance is how much heat can be dissipated from the chip during standard operation. High-end chips have been able to hit 7+GHz with liquid nitrogen cooling for years.[0] Higher electric fields and smaller transistors also leads to gate leakage, where electrons tunnel across the potential barriers that are supposed to prevent conduction. This requires all sorts of microarchitecture tricks to fight, while at the same time wasting more power and producing more heat. [0] https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/04/gskill-hwbot-overclocking-workshop-7ghz-computex/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/04/gskill-hwbot-overclockin...