Via C7 Processor (CPU) - cpufreq and make.conf support

[Ross Penner]

On 10/24/07, Ross Penner <ross.penner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/24/07, Erik Cederstrand <erik at cederstrand.dk> wrote:
> >
> > Ross Penner wrote:
> > > Hi all, I have a few questions about my Via C7 processor. In
> > > examples/make.conf there is an option for the CPUTYPE. It indicates
> > > that only the C3 and the C3-2 chips are supported. Does the C7 chip
> > > have support that I don't know of? If not, will it? Otherwise, will
> > > specifying the chipset as C3 help or hinder my environment?
> >
> > I know this is not an answer, but why not just upgrade to 7.0 if you
> > need the C7 support?
> 
>  I probably will. I just thought I'd try and see if I could stay on stable
> first.
> 
> > My second question is in regards to the CPU frequency control. I've
> > > seen that the C7 gets support for cpufreq in 7 current, but I'm
> > > running 6. Without support in cpufreq, what speed would my processor
> > > be running at? I've always thought my performance has been lackluster
> > > so I suspect it's running at the lower clock speed.
> >
> > If cpufreq/powerd is not active, your processor is running full-speed.
> > You can check this with "sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq" if it's available on
> > your system.
> 
> sounds reasonable. unfortunetly, 'sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq' doesn't seem to
> work on my system. heh, it'd probably work if I upgrade to 7.0

Apparently I'm an idiot. the sysctl command does work. when the system is mostly idle, It outputs '198' and when I put a high cpu load on it, it outputs '397'. I'm not exactly sure what this means as I'm hoping it doesn't refer to the MHz. It's a 1.2GHz processor. Can somebody help me interpret this result?