Ubuntu: Faster, But More Power Hungry Than Mac OS X?

[cruiseoveride]

OMG What do you know, a computer thats faster uses more power. What a ludicrous concept...


/phoronix phail

[sal-e]

Peak and average power usage are very important when you using battery

You should however take into consideration the "rush to idle" factor - even though Linux uses much more peak power it also finishes in a fraction of the time OS X used to complete the task, which means that completing task might have actually used much less power overall in Linux than it did on OS X. The Linux box could idle (or even sleep/shutdown) when OS X would still be hard at work, thus using very little power.

This is very true when you have unlimited power source with static efficiency. But here we are talking about battery. The battery capacity (Ah or mAh) is specified at optimal discharge current (Id). If you discharge the battery with greater current the battery heats up and it capacity drops rather quickly. So I suspect that Apple engineers has reduced the max/avg load by slowing down the "OS X" in order to optimize the battery capacity. Ubuntu and other distribution engineers don't have the needed data in order to do the same. They just optimize for speed. I wish I had the knowledge of the kernel and slowly over time to build library of profiles that every Linux user can use to have maximum battery life if they want.

[mirv]

I'll chime in on this discussion, having worked with electricity meters...
Peak power is important to know what level a battery / power supply / whatever must be capable of supporting, but equally important is how long that power level can be sustained for.
So for tasks that finish as soon as possible, you really have to look at total energy consumption (Wh), but for games you'll be more interested in power (W) - and frame rates of course.
So yes, while those graphs are useful, a Wh value at the end would be even more so.

[smitty3268]

Yeah, these tests showed nothing except that ubuntu was much better at using the hardware to it's full potential. Given the performance difference, the fact that it is using more power at peak is obvious.

Power tests that would actually be useful:
1. Idle at the desktop
2. Watching a Youtube video at 1080p, or a DVD
3. Browsing the web, loading a page every 30 seconds or so

[Apopas]

I always wondered how much the DE affects power consumption. ie I'd love to see a Kubuntu vs Ubuntu comparison...

[BlackStar]

As the previous posters said, peak power consumption is not a very useful metric. Idle and total consumption are far more useful in drawing conclusions.

[Tgui]

Earlier this week I noted there's new Apple hardware in our labs being used to tighten

I call my bedroom my "lab" as well.

[evolution]

You should've done an energy consuption graphic... It' very interesting that although Ubuntu spends more average power than Mac, it takes much less time to do the tasks tested here... Which means, it might be consuming some less energy than a Mac!

Btw, for me, Linux >> Mac
Cheers

[jntesteves]

Hi Michael, there's some small problems in the graphs generated by PTS:
On the OpenArena, Nexuiz, John The Ripper graphs it's writen Milliwatts, Higher Is Better;
The last graph doesn't say which one is better;
The C-Ray graph doesn't show the end of Ubuntu's timeline.

And I think you should use something like Higher-Lower instead of Higher-Less, but that is just an opinion and I'm not the best with english anyway.

Keep up the good work

[vstrien]

When looking at how OS X throttles the CPU & GPU, it looks like a long-term version of the CPU-governor we know under Linux as "conservative". Would be interesting to see if the "conservative" CPU-governor makes much difference

But again, Linux here uses the (Intel-recommended) "rush to idle" - hereby using more power for the short run.. When linux for example would use 10 Watts when being in the "idle" state, Linux uses on average 9 Watts on the OpenArena benchmark ((5.1 * 10 + 10 * 40) / 50) - where Mac uses on average 39 Watts. Maybe it's a good idea to include the power usage of Linux being idle too (while OS X completes his benchmark)? Just a suggestion..

That should be 18 Watts of course, and the correct equation is ((51 * 10 + 10 * 40) / 50).