Comment 118 for bug 524281

FWIW, the mainline 2.6.35.2 kernel has reverted the nohz_ratelimit patch now (http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.6.35.y.git;a=commit;h=1dc89aec877583e3e42421be77b063724a4bbb07) so Maverick should get this improvement (ie have a reduced number of load balancing ticks).

I tried 2.6.35.2 with the other load balancing patches (that convert to a 'push' model IIRC) and on my laptop the number of load balancing ticks drop from around 50 to perhaps 35 per second. Power usage drops approximately one watt.