MBP, whats with the 2 graphics cards?

MuGeN · 26 Nov 2012 at 15:43

Hi guys,

Just ordered a MBP (2.6GHz, 16GB Ram, 256GB SSD) and was wondering why its listed as having an Intel graphics chip, along with the proper GeForce one?

Does it flick between them based on what power is needed at any given time hence saving juice?

I must say you know, its a hell of a lot of computer for the money... certainly not worth the extra wonga to step up to 512GB space though, most of my stuff is in the cloud these days

PhillyDee · 26 Nov 2012 at 15:45

My Lenovo Thinkpad does that also. You can specifiy which program uses which card. I assume the macs to be the same!

Disco Boy · 26 Nov 2012 at 16:43

Like pretty much every other laptop with a dedicated graphics card and a Sandybridge or later Intel processor, they swap between the low power onboard graphics and powerful dedicated card when necessary*.

* it's not always perfect at doing this, but can be forced to do what you want most of the time.

MagicBoy · 26 Nov 2012 at 23:27

MuGeN said:
Does it flick between them based on what power is needed at any given time hence saving juice?

Yeah, pretty much.

If an application needs a feature supported by the discrete card or maximum performance then it switches. Mine spends about 90% of the time on the Intel card and you can't tell the difference in general use when it's on the Intel.

There's a couple of other things to mention - an external monitor will always switch to the discrete card, as will Windows via Boot Camp.