Does Windows consume more power than OS X, or is it Mac's fault?

[printz]

I've noticed both with the video-card-less 2008 white MacBook and with the new 15" Retina MacBook Pro that Windows run natively tends to make the laptop warmer and noisier than OS X, and battery duration seems to be halved (even if I disable automatic card switching in OS X to make it a fair comparison). Does Windows waste more power in general, or is it not fully compatible with Mac's hardware to use it efficiently?

I also got to compare Doom 3 on 2880x1800 resolution on OS X with GZDoom (classic Doom modified engine to use OpenGL, runs faster on older computers than Doom 3) on Windows, also 2880x1800. Running Doom 3 on OS X was audible but fairly low, while GZDoom on Windows 7 Pro x64 made it seem like all the processor cores were running.

 

[maflynn]

On MBPs OSX does a better job at managing the speed, and temperature then windows. That's not to say windows does a worse job in general, just on the MBP. For instance there's no way to switch to the integrated GPU in windows, so you're running off the discrete GPU.