NVIDIA Optimus Linux Power Battery Tests

Beyond the Zenbook Prime SSD tests, some more performance data to share this Sunday from the ASUS UX32 ultrabook is of the battery power consumption when running some NVIDIA Optimus Linux tests and kernel comparisons.

A few days ago I shared NVIDIA Optimus results between Ubuntu 13.10 and Windows 8.1 while in a separate OpenBenchmarking.org result file I have some power metrics that I did earlier in the month when the ASUS Intel ultrabook was running on battery under Ubuntu.

The power results for your viewing pleasure today are from an Ubuntu 13.10 stock configuration, Ubuntu 13.10 with DRI_PRIME=1, Bumblebee when running the tests under Optirun, Ubuntu 13.10 results when upgrading to the Linux 3.12 kernel, and battery results when using the Linux 3.13 Git kernel.

Benchmarks are easily facilitated by setting the MONITOR=sys.power environment variable prior to running the Phoronix Test Suite. Setting the PERFORMANCE_PER_WATT=1 environment variable also yields performance-per-Watt graphs for any of the test profiles run by the Phoronix Test Suite.

These battery power results from all of the different test configurations with the ASUS Zenbook Prime ultrabook can be found via the 1312076-SO-OPTIMUSPO03 result file. In general you can also compare your laptop's power consumption to the Core i7 UX32 ultrabook by running MONITOR=sys.power phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1312076-SO-OPTIMUSPO03 from any Linux distribution while running on battery (or having a USB-based WattsUp power meter).
The best power consumption was when using the Linux 3.12 kernel, but there's still much work that needs to be done on Linux for improving dynamic GPU handling and power-on/off.
It's frightening that the Linux 3.13 kernel power consumption is higher but without any performance improvements -- see the aforelinked result file for all the details.
View the rest of these Linux ultrabook power tests via 1312076-SO-OPTIMUSPO03. Run your own Linux performance and power consumption benchmarks using the open-source Phoronix Test Suite platform. On a related note, a few days ago I also put out results from Linux 3.13 kernel power consumption benchmarks that were done from a different x86 system.