Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops Impact Performance, Power Consumption

Written by Michael Larabel in Operating Systems on 11 April 2012 at 03:00 AM EDT. Page 6 of 8. 24 Comments.
Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops W510

The last system being used for testing in this article today is an Intel Core i5 2520M "Sandy Bridge" notebook with its Sandy Bridge Mobile GT2+ graphics on the open-source Intel Linux graphics driver stack.

Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops W510

Coming out the best for Intel was the KDE 4.8.2 desktop but all seven of the desktops ran within about two Watts of each other. The Ubuntu Unity desktops during idling were sitting right in the middle in terms of battery power use.

Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops W510

Running OpenArena on the open-source Intel Sandy Bridge graphics led to the Unity desktops and KDE being the slowest in the default configurations while Xfce, OpenBox, and GNOME Shell were leading the pact.

Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops W510

The Unity 2D desktop was spiking noticeably in terms of power consumption during this OpenArena test run with its power consumption being 12% greater than the default Unity desktop. Xfce 4.8 had the lowest power consumption when running this ioquake3 game on Intel graphics.


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