About 6 months ago I moved from a big desktop to a laptop with much less compute power. I had to change a lot of my workflow and software because I didn’t realise how much background compute and stuff everything was doing on the desktop.
I do miss some of the features, but overall I feel better about myself and my situation. I feel more in control and aware of what is going on with my hardware and that is satisfying.
I was able to tune the desktop down to about 65-85W usage, but prior to all that, it was pulling like 180W just doing nothing. I found the most gains by turning down my monitor from 100hz to 60hz and turning on eco mode for the CPU in the BIOS. The laptop uses about 10W even under load.
Best of luck with the switch!
There is some movement, but it isn’t nearly enough.
https://code.mil/