I'd have thought the opposite : run the CPU at full power so you can terminate short tasks quickly and go back to sleep. Then if the task takes longer, throttle

I'd have thought the opposite : run the CPU at full power so you can terminate short tasks quickly and go back to sleep. Then if the task takes longer, throttle down as needed to regulate heat dissipation. Since there are a lot of small tasks when using a computer that would be also better for responsiveness. It's not like a car that takes a lot of energy to accelerate, you can just change the CPU clock speed as you want. What I'd like to see is a benchmark of the actual amount of energy used to perform tasks in various conditions.