14. Battery Tests - Run-Down Times For Games, Presentations And DVD Playback

THG measures battery operating times using three typical applications:

We selected the "Portable/ Laptop" setting as the energy scheme for all three tests.

This should open the eyes of anyone who thinks that battery life depends largely on the CPU's clock speed. In a modern mobile CPU, the application that's running determines how fast the CPU runs and, hence, also sets the basic framework for its energy consumption. Obviously, a CPU speed of 1.2 GHz is more than enough to give a presentation or even playback a DVD video (with no hiccups). This means that even the "slowest" CPU (1.4 GHz) in the test field is well-equipped to handle these sorts of applications.

The story is a little different when it comes to games. Here, Speedstep obviously decides in favor of the maximum clock speed. The graphics card is also running at full steam. Both raise energy consumption noticeably and have a massive effect on battery life. The fact that this doesn't necessarily mean a clear gain in performance has already been demonstrated in the 3D Performance section above.