Embedded Programming with Modern C++ Cookbook

Configuring CPU frequency

The CPU frequency is an important parameter of the system that determines its performance and its power consumption. The higher the frequency, the more instructions the CPU can perform per second. But it comes with a cost. Higher frequency implies a higher power consumption that, in turn, means more heat that needs to be dissipated to avoid the processor overheating.

Modern processors are able to use different operating frequencies depending on their load. For computationally intense tasks, they use their maximum frequency to achieve the maximum performance, but when the system is mostly idle, they switch to lower frequencies to reduce both the power consumption and thermal impact.

Proper frequency selection is managed ...