MANAGING PROCESSOR FREQUENCIES

Power can be conserved by managing the frequencies at which a processor operates to process data packets. For example, a pair of frequencies can be selected from among at least three candidate frequencies based on a power consumption associated with the pair of frequencies being less than another power consumption associated with another pair of frequencies selected from the at least three candidate frequencies. A clock rate of the processor can be set to a lower frequency in the selected pair of frequencies based on a number of data packets in a data buffer being below a threshold number of data packets. The clock rate of the processor can be set to a higher frequency in the selected pair of frequencies based on the number of data packets in the data buffer meeting or exceeding the threshold number of data packets.