I assume this applies to other electronics as well: When my laptop is plugged into a wall outlet when I am using it, it is significantly faster and more responsive than when it is using battery power, even at full charge. It is especially noticeable when using more cpu/gpu power, such as when I am gaming. Why is this? Does the nature of the power source affect computer speed?
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The laptop underpowers its components when not plugged in to conserve battery life. That’s really the long and short of it.
Laptops generally have pre-installed power management software that can throttle performance to ensure good battery life. If you haven’t changed any settings, the default will usually reduce performance any time it’s on purely battery power, regardless of charge. The assumption being that, as a laptop, it’s more useful to have 6 hours of operation at 50% performance than 2-3 hours at 100% performance. It can always take more time to get something done, but once the battery is low, you can’t do anything.
However, if you’re connected to an external power source, the laptop will generally assume that power is plentiful, so it will give you 100% performance as long as it can also charge the battery as it does so.
They don’t generally run more efficiently, but they do run faster.
Laptops are designed to run off battery, if need be. Most people want the computer to run longer when on battery, rather than running fast and spending the battery quickly (particularly if you are working), so the laptop is designed to conserve energy by running the processor and other components in a slower low-power mode. Some even switch from a powerful graphics chip when plugged in, to a simpler graphics chip when running on battery (graphics can use lots of power).
When the laptop is plugged in, there’s plenty of power and you’re not worrying about the battery running out, so the laptop cranks up the speed of everything.
The thing is, it might be more efficient in the low power mode because it’s going out of its way to not be wasteful (by default), and using more power might not speed it up as much as it uses more energy.
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