FYI, a few notes after studying hildon-desktop source

1) Blur.turbo setting: It is used in two functions in hildon-desktop to bypass some initialization jobs.One of the function is in hd_launcher_tile_init() and the other is for tidy_blur_group_class_init().

a) hd_launcher_tile_init(): Seems to me more like a debug feature, instead of instantiating a ClutterGroup, a ClutterRectangular object(?) is created. The difference between these two is the later doesn't have ClutterContainer so maybe save some memory. In turbo mode, the ClutterRectangular is painted red and also from the comment it looks like it's mainly for debugging.

EDIT: After reboot you will see the background around icons becoming red on launcher page.

b) tidy_blur_group_class_init(): When turbo mode is on, bypass tidy_blur_group_paint(). It's a function with nearly 400-line codes and the comment said it paints all child actor so this could a more time-consuming function.

So turbo mode is a valid setting, but it has nothing to do with frame-rate. It's an optimization on blur, whether it brings tangible improvement or not is another thing, though.