Question about Battery Modes and Performance

[superspiffy]

Do the 4 different battery modes (better battery, custom, high performance...) influence actual computer performance? In other words, will the computer run faster if set on high performance vs better battery? Like more juice to the cpu and gpu? or do these battery modes just strictly control sleep times/display dimming, etc?

 

[PkennethV]

What computer exactly are you referring to. I pretty sure that they only affect the display/sleep/brightness etc. but on some G4 laptops if I remember correctly, have another pull down menu in Energy Saver for actual processor performance. Don't remember what that was called though...but it's not the 4 battery modes you mentioned.

 

[xfiftyfour]

I'm not 100% positive, but I'm fairly certain that the high performance versus better battery life DOES affect the processor, since that can eat up a lot of your battery life fairly quickly. I imagine, though, that OSX probably does something along the lines of speed-stepping rather than crippling - so if you have it set to better battery life, it'll drop the processor speed down when you're doing light tasks, but won't slow down the processor if you're doing heavier things.

From Apple's website:

Automatic Power Profiles
Experience more efficient battery usage because Tiger learns how you use your computer and automatically adjusts its power consumption to maximize battery life.