Reducing power consumption of communication interfaces by clock frequency scaling and adaptive interleaving of polling is disclosed. In a first aspect, a control system controls transmission of a command via a serial interface at a higher clock frequency. After transmission, the control system and the interface are operated at a lower clock frequency to save power during command execution. In this aspect, a reduction in polling corresponds to the reduction in clock signal frequency. When the command is complete, the interface is operated at the higher frequency to send another command. In a second aspect, after the control system sends a command to the receiving device, polling is suspended and an execution time of the command is tracked. Polling begins when the tracked execution time almost equals an expected completion time. Both aspects disclosed above may be implemented to reduce power consumption in exchange for a small increase in latency.