The magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC) technique is a powerful analysis and design tool that combines relative accuracy with moderate computational effort. In this paper, a nodal-based MEC formulation and a mesh-based MEC formulation of a magnetic system are compared. The Newton-Raphson algorithm is used to solve the algebraic system, and to draw conclusions about the computational efficiency of the two formulations under linear and nonlinear operation. Although the two formulations exhibit similar performance under linear operating conditions, the performance of the mesh-based model is significantly better than that of the nodal-based model under nonlinear operation.