2011 Macbook Pro power consumption

March 25, 2011 10:26 AM

How can the new Macbook Pros use 90+ watts of power when they only have 85W power adapters?

I'm not good with electricity. Can someone help me understand?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/14

posted by mpls2 to Science & Nature (3 answers total)

Best answer: From the review:

Under Cinebench the new quad-core 15-inch MacBook Pro draws 70% more power at the wall [...]

That, I think, is the key point. The 85W adapter presumably provides 85W of DC to the computer, but draws more than that from the outlet ... it's not 100% efficient, after all.

Although if it provides 85W out while only drawing 93W, that's not too bad for a wall wart -- over 90%. I've heard that a lot of adapters are down around 50-60% or so, with the rest going out as heat.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:45 AM on March 25, 2011

the rest going out as heat.

Indeed, those white bricks get damn hot.
posted by tremspeed at 10:51 AM on March 25, 2011

I'm hoping that someone will discover a way to disable half the cores and the high-performance graphics card for times when you want to work quietly.

Unless I'm mistaken, you can use this utility to at least manually pick which graphics card you want to use.
posted by Zephyrial at 12:21 PM on March 25, 2011 [1 favorite]