> No one with technical experience thinks you can make a computer run faster by boosting the input voltage.
Fun fact: some computers actually can be made to run faster by raising the input voltage! The higher voltage decreases the delays of the logic gates, and lets you clock it faster. The big problem is that this also raises the power consumption -- both energy per second and per clock cycle.
That's a good note, but I did mean the computer's input voltage, not the CPU's. You can increase an individual neuron's firing speed plausibly trivially, but the brain (like the computer) is a complex regulated system that can't be played with that way without causing problems.
Okay, fine -- but bear in mind that there are computers which run everything, from the CPU to the memory to the I/O, off a single (variable) input voltage. Most microcontrollers, for example, meet this description. I googled one at random to get some specific numbers; the PIC18F4550 runs on anything from 2 to 5.5 V, and this is not unusual.
Okay, okay, you got me. I'll concede the point entirely :) Feel free to disregard the analogy as it applies to computers which may be made to run faster by raising the input voltage.
Fun fact: some computers actually can be made to run faster by raising the input voltage! The higher voltage decreases the delays of the logic gates, and lets you clock it faster. The big problem is that this also raises the power consumption -- both energy per second and per clock cycle.