Does Saving Power Mean Hurting Performance?

Power Consumption And Performance Per Watt

The idle power difference is significant.

The same absolute power difference could be observed at peak processor load, where the difference becomes less relevant. Since systems spend more time in a near-idle state than they do in high- or peak-power mode, idle power requirements carry more weight.

The power saving setups clearly required less power with SYSmark 2007.

The total power used (in Watt hours) to complete a SYSmark 2007 Preview run was smaller with all power savings enabled, which demonstrated the efficiency of the power-saving features.

The SYSmark 2007 Preview score in per–Watt-hour units is the highest when high-performance modes are used. However, one should keep in mind that the performance differences in SYSmark 2007 may not be very noticeable due to idle times in between the benchmark sections.