Power Consumption

[spitzerspace]

Hello -

I am currently running Windows XP on a dell latitude e6400, but I'm strongly considering upgrading to win 7. However, I am very concerned about power consumption.

The e6400 is energy star and currently consumes roughly 13 watts at idle when plugged in. I have heard very different things regarding power consumption in win 7. Some say it's better than vista but worse than xp and some say it is worse than both.

I know windows 7 allows for substantial control over power usage, but I was curious about other users experiences. Did you observe a general increase/decrease/break even when upgrading from xp to 7?

Thanks

 

[Nemix]

Personally I do not think Windows 7 takes that much more power consumption, Aspire One netbook users have reported Windows 7 extends the battery life of their netbooks; I'm not sure if the rumors on Windows7 taking more power is true. However, there are plenty of power options to tweak in Windows 7 that are not found on Windows XP e.g. Hybrid Sleep, PCI Express Power Options, USB Selective Suspend, Wireless Power Save, Minimum/Maximum CPU State..etc.