If, as tested, this setting makes a double-digit percentage difference, I'm glad Microsoft exposes it in the UI. I'd also be glad if they didn't do as much weird stuff on their user's devices as they do.
I'd rather them write more performant code. This feels like your car having the option to burn motor oil to show a more precise clock on the dash; you don't get kudos for adding an off-switch for that.
In keeping with the theme of the comment you're replying to, writing better-performing code and providing performance options are not mutually exclusive. Both are good ideas.
> This feels like your car having the option to burn motor oil to show a more precise clock on the dash; you don't get kudos for adding an off-switch for that.
(Sounds more like you're arguing that it should be forced off instead of being an option? Reasonable take in this case, but not the same argument.)
I think we all agree there needs to be some additional power draw for the seconds feature, but it’s unclear how much power is truly necessary vs this just being a poor implementation.
There's an ungodly amount of CPU and GPU spikes throughout the OS which make the "omg seconds" invisible in comparison
Energy isn’t free.
Even if they wrote more performant code, it would just mean less relative loss of energy to show seconds but still loss compared to not showing seconds.
I actively don't want to see seconds; the constant updating is distracting. It should be an option even if there were no energy impact. (Ditto for terminal cursor blinking).
My expectations of Microsoft software aren't terribly high. I'd say Windows is performant (ie it works about as well as I expect).
The feature is off by default in Windows 11 and was not offered in any previous non-beta Windows version.
(Have I mentioned how much I loathe Windows 11?)
The recommendations suggest, among other things, switching to power-saving mode, turning on dark mode, setting screen brightness for energy efficiency, and auto-suspending and turning the screen off after 3 minutes.
Power-saving mode saves little at least on most laptops but has a significant performance impact, dark mode only saves power on LED displays (LCDs have a slight inverse effect), and both dark/light mode and screen brightness should be set based on ergonomics, not based on saving three watts.
When these kinds of recommendations are given to the consumer for "lowering your carbon footprint", with a green leaf symbol for impact, while Microsoft's data centres keep spending enormous amounts of power on data analysis, I find it hard to see that as anything more than greenwashing.