Hidden processor usage

[seba2122]

Hello~!
I have Samsung RF-510 with Ubuntu 14.04 running in it.
I've been programming microcontrollers for more than 2 years now and the knowledge I gained by that also helps me understand how modern computers work.

I'm currently using Unity. Of course while typing this post I'm also using Wifi, sound card for music(so going with that my HDD). EVERY SINGLE THING, even moving my mouse pointer in circles, takes CPU cycles. Even a blinking cursor takes some CPU because the CPU must send specific data sets to my graphic card so it can display a blinking vertical line.

Now, WOULD.... or WOULD IT NOT help if I ran Boinc Client purely from "text environment" ? Would it help to have a system running "only" boinc that would once a 2-3 days start wifi, upload/download tasks and immediately shut wifi down so the CPU doesn't need to bother with the hardware of wifi ?

My average time for a single task is 1 hour. I'm using only CPU because my graphic card doesn't work with GPU apps.
So would reducing "background" usage of an CPU help finish one task in let's say 45-50 minutes?

Hope I wrote everything so that you understand what I have on mind.

Thank you

[Dubslow]

We've generally found that an idling GUI is less than 1% impact on performance applications, typically Prime95, but I believe this result should extend to Boinc as well.

Modern GUIs are very good at consuming very little CPU when they're doing nothing. Keep in mind that modern desktop and laptop processors run at frequencies higher than a billion cycles per second -- even one million whole cycles for the GUI every second, which is a *lot*, is still less than a tenth of one percent of the available processing power per core.

[LaurV]

Adding to what Dubslow said, for some graphic cards (most of them optimized for graphic mode), running them in text mode wastes more than that single percent people are talking about (because the card is "emulating" the text mode, is not "native").