A high performance plan will run your system at it's optimal performance, a default power saver plans will decrease performance when on a battery, but I have not said I use a default power saver plan. No plan can improve performance, you can't make your laptop have a greater performance than what it is.
Obviously we have different ideas of what a serious amount of work is and I have no intentions in stopping you.
I really cannot see the point of running a benchmark on a system with a low battery and hence my comment, which you took the wrong way thinking I was saying it's stupid to run a laptop on a battery (but I stand by my comment of a serious amount of work, I can easily program for 10 hours straight).
but in all fairness I should have read the rest of your comment properly, your disclaimer caught my eye before finishing the first sentence, wrongfully a red flag to me, even if you did suggest that I was "stupid"er but that's water of a ducks back to me... So I can see that my comment seamed out of place to your complete comment but I was only replying to the "benchmark on a low battery" part.
It's not the power saving mode per say , it the misinformation that's around a lot of things and I'm not saying that's you saying that.
maybe a question to the OP is ask if they were running off the battery or plugged in, but then again they have not replied once..