Clock gating, which turns off individual components such as execution units, has been much more thoroughly implemented. There is something like 30,000 clock enables throughout the design, and it should allow an unprecedented amount of power savings (and heat reduction) even when the CPU is at high usage rates. Even though a processor might be at 100% utilization, not all functional units are being used or need to be clocked. By having a highly granular control over which units can be gated, overall TDP and heat production can be reduced dramatically even at high utilization rates.
If im not mistaken, at HotChips AMD said that Bulldozer will PowerGate the entire Module and not individual components, have I missed something here ??