tbf it probably is still significantly less that windows, i was being a bit facetious...but it's still at like 1-1,5gb idling on a fresh boot (this is the whole DE, not just cinnamon)...
i did a fresh install with mate on an old machine though and it was a lot less (the usual 500mb or something) can't see anything suspicious running though - and yes I did check without any stuff running in the background like steam which is also stupidly intensive with their webkit nonsense