> Since we agree on the non-linear relationship between TDP and benchmark scores, can we also agree that further reduction in power (to say 45w) would only caus

> Since we agree on the non-linear relationship between TDP and benchmark scores, can we also agree that further reduction in power (to say 45w) would only cause a small drop in performance? You're confusing actual power with the system's configured power limit. When the default power limit is higher than the actual power draw during a given workload, then you obviously have headroom to lower that power limit quite a bit without severely reducing performance. That doesn't mean further reductions in the power limit will have similar impact, once you're working in the range where the power limit actually starts to kick in. And as you get to even lower power limits, a smaller fraction of that power budget is available for doing useful work as subsystems like the memory controller cannot reduce their power consumption as readily as the CPU cores.