Mac OS X Power Consumption vs. Ubuntu 11.04, Windows 7

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mac OS X Power Consumption vs. Ubuntu 11.04, Windows 7

Last week we delivered results looking at the power consumption of Ubuntu 11.04 versus Windows 7, which was interesting in its own right, but in this article is a brief look at where Apple's Mac OS X operating system fits in between the power consumption of Ubuntu Linux and Microsoft Windows.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=16193

[deanjo]

Too bad you didn't have a larger desktop system Michael. When I ran tests about a year ago on a dual processor Mac Pro it was scary how much of a difference there was.

[Michael]

Too bad you didn't have a larger desktop system Michael. When I ran tests about a year ago on a dual processor Mac Pro it was scary how much of a difference there was.

Only non-Mini Mac that I have is a 2010 Mac Book Pro, but I use that as my main business system so I'm not going to mess around with Linux (I use Ubuntu in a VM) or Windows on that.

[deanjo]

Only non-Mini Mac that I have is a 2010 Mac Book Pro, but I use that as my main business system so I'm not going to mess around with Linux (I use Ubuntu in a VM) or Windows on that.

Ya I realize that. Even then the power strategy for a MBP and the mac mini are virtually identical (at least when the MBP is plugged in) so I wouldn't expect much difference between the two. I'm just more curious about the difference when it came to SMP systems. And even then I would be more curious when 10.7 was installed on it.

[bongmaster2]

rather useless test. its like testing galium drivers with swapbufferswait on.
the only reasonable thing would be to apply your power consumption fixes for the kernel

[AnonymousCoward]

The main thing is that its an OSX machine.
Redo the test on a PC that can run OSX, you'll see different result. The main reason is that many drivers (that Apple provides) don't support proper energy management on Windows.

Now then again on Linux.. its been posted

I've a 2011 MBP 13" and its runtime is comparable to my 2010 Vaio Z11 13" running W7 and Linux beats both (not the latest kernels)

[deanjo]

The main thing is that its an OSX machine.
Redo the test on a PC that can run OSX, you'll see different result.

You would be surprised. A hackintosh works just as well with OS X's power management.

[crazycheese]

I wonder if OSX boot usage is lower due to less shell spawning than on linux.