Awkward Linux Power Management With Xen

When this system with NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M graphics was running the lightweight OpenArena game with Xen 4.1-amd64 support, the power consumption was higher by 18%.

Interestingly, the C-Ray performance results with the Xen-enabled 3.0 and 3.2 kernels was faster both times than the normal kernel without Xen Dom0 support. This is the opposite of what happened on the Sandy Bridge system.

With all cores of the Core i7 Clarksfield notebook maxed out by C-Ray, the power consumption with Xen support enabled was greater by 12%.