you may just want to get a more efficient PSU (Seasonic makes good ones), and if you do go the route of a new cpu look at a FX-4300, very little price difference and it is faster with the same 95W TDP
The "AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor" has 2 unlocked versions (aka black edition) one is a 125 TDP the other is a 140 TDP
In your BIOS be sure Cool n Quiet is enabled in your BIOS
you can use a cpu governor applet to watch the core GHz, they do scale you probably have 800Mhz, 2.2GHz, 2.7GHz, and 3.4GHz, unless you are overclocking
to view your current cpu frequencies this command will work (the frequency changes depending on load)
Code:
cat -n /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq | awk '{print "Core "$1" is at "$2/1000" MHz"}'
on xubuntu i use the genmon applet, i have attached the scripts i have them call
here is a screenshot of them (based on the gnome 2 applets for cpu govenor and sensors)
i have included a php and a bash version of the cpu governor applet (which can be used to underclock using the userspace Governor)
the command you use
you will need the cpufrequtils package to use the applet to change the governor (or mod the script to use the alternative command)
also in your /etc/rc.local you will need to have it chmod some stuff so it will be able to alter the setting
Code:
bash -c 'sleep 5;chmod 777 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/{scaling_setspeed,scaling_governor}' &
the command used in the genmon applet for the governor detector is
2 is the core number (starting at 0)
the one for the sensors is a bit more tricky
Code:
temp "CPU Temperature" cpu -C
"CPU Temperature" is the line that the temp appears on in the sensors command
cpu is the icon file name
-C means display in Celsius
the order of the parameters is important
to install the attached stuff just extract it to /
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