Display and Graphics Power Saving FAQ

Will screen blanking (making the screen go all black instead of going off or displaying a screen saver) save power?
Generally not. In fact, displaying all black can actually consume *more* power than displaying a photographic background or all white background on LCD displays. Instead of using screen blanking, set your dipsplay to suspend or turn off after a short period of time; you'll save much more power that way.

What's the best way of saving power while my display is in use?
One of largest power draws in a typical laptop system is the display backlight. If you don't need it at full brightness to work, you can save up to several watts of power by dimming it. You can use the xrandr, xbacklight, or desktop utilities to accomplish this.

What is framebuffer compression? How can I maximize my power savings when using it?
Intel mobile graphics devices (e.g. 965GM, 945GM) have the ability to scan out the display from a compressed buffer. The hardware periodically compresses the real framebuffer using run length encoding (RLE) on each line. As long as a line hasn't been modified since it was last compressed, at each refresh period the hardware will use the compressed version, which reduces memory bus traffic, saving power. To maximize this benefit, it's best to have a desktop full of content easily compressible by RLE, like solid colors or gradients that don't vary along the X axis (since compression is done on a linewise basis).