Does Linux use more power than Windows on the same hardware?

Whiffle

Whiffle

Whiffle

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Hi there.

I have a rather old laptop laptop (first generation i3) that still runs Windows 10 OK but I was thinking of having a go with Linux.

Having done a bit of research, there are quite a few videos that suggest that Linux uses more power than Windows on the same hardware.

Is this really the case?

I though that the opposite would be true as Linux uses less resources. However, the inference seems to be that power saving is primarily set up for Windows and thus Linux drivers just are not as good at putting hardware into lower power modes.
 
How long is a piece of string?

It's going to be very much dependent on what you're doing on it.

If you're really that interested/concerned about power consumption, then I'd suggest getting a power monitoring plug and testing whatever it is you're doing on both OS and then compare.
 
Thanks - encouraging that is not a definitive yes or no situation.

I really want to try and make the jump to Linux, from Windows, but I do not want to start using devices that actually use more power (especially at the moment).
 
It's going to depend really on how well the Linux kernel supports the power management features of the hardware. I would think that if you're using anything vaguely modern (and a 1st gen i3 would count) then it should be alright though.
 
Thanks for this.

Thinking about it, my laptop is rarely going to be leaving my house (if at all) so if running costs differences are going to be negligible, battery power life is going to be largely irrelevant as I can always plug it in whenever needed.

I think the thing that surprised me was that Linux could possibly use more power than Windows, given that it is known for being less resource hungry.

However, it seems that this is flawed - the suggestion seems to be that as Windows has a vastly larger share of the market, hardware makers are more interested in ensuring that Windows efficiency drivers work well with them.

In any event, even if Linux uses more power, seems to be the price you pay for what many consider a superior OS.
 
Power states aren't as good, that's correct.

However, it's less resource hungry than Windows and therefore generally able to run on older hardware a lot better
 
Windows 10/11 are capable of lower power consumption than Linux but rarely do in reality - I have a low power mini PC I use for some network services - on 10 stuff like the malware protection engine, compatibility telemetry, various update related tasks (even with updates disabled), etc. etc. kick in with long periods where it is sitting at ~7 watt while when I tested with Linux (Debian based) and Windows 7 it would idle at ~2 watt or less with rarely any increase over that.
 
In my experience on my main machine which is dual boot i've found that compared to Windows 11, Pop!_OS uses about 10% less power, doing simple browsing/desktop tasks.

Measured it on a Tapo smart plug. YMMV.

Edit - Pop!_OS is also far less "chatty" and has far, far less I/O utilisation, so even though Windows may have better power states this is outweighed by all the other stuff it does which isn't necessary to the users benefit...(as mentioned by Rroff above)
 
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The newer versions of Linux (the kernel) have a ton of optimisations and power table stuff going on, including c states, core balancing black magic and the latest chip code. Unfortunately, for various reasons it's not enabled by default in most distros, certainly the systemd based ones (i.e. most). Because of this, they're not at all as power effecient (or performant) as they could and should be. To activate them, you need to install thermald. No need to configure it, just installing it (and enabling the service if you're on a non-Debian-based distro) is enough. If you run benchmarks before and after, you'll see a decent improvement. I only know because there was a thread on HN about it recently.
 
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