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Mid to high end mobile devices can use these chips with a switchable external GPU that can be turned on for graphics-intensive applications and off when it's no

Mid to high end mobile devices can use these chips with a switchable external GPU that can be turned on for graphics-intensive applications and off when it's not needed in order to improve power consumption - Apple is doing this with their MB Pros, and as far as I know it has been an effective configuration. I can imagine a similar setup in desktop machines to reduce their power consumption.

mistermann 16y ago
From the reading I've done lately, switchable graphics are just now coming into their own. Nvidia Optimus in notebooks (only) now apparently does very nice automatic seamless switching between CPU and dedicated GPU. There are some good articles out there benchmarking the much improved battery life. When the next round of SSD are released, one will be able to buy a pretty sweet laptop: powerful when you need it, but super efficient when you don't, and fast always. I'm pretty certain I read (an article on anantech?) that graphics switching is explicitly not going to be supported on desktops until the next release of intel processors. Here it is: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i5-2600k-i5-2500k-and-core-i3-2100-tested http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-i... "Quick Sync with a Discrete GPU There’s just one hangup to all of this Quick Sync greatness: it only works if the processor’s GPU is enabled. In other words, on a desktop with a single monitor connected to a discrete GPU, you can’t use Quick Sync. This isn’t a problem for mobile since Sandy Bridge notebooks should support switchable graphics, meaning you can use Quick Sync without waking up the discrete GPU. However there’s no standardized switchable graphics for desktops yet. Intel indicated that we may see some switchable solutions in the coming months on the desktop, but until then you either have to use the integrated GPU alone or run a multimonitor setup with one monitor connected to Intel’s GPU in order to use Quick Sync."

mistermann 16y ago

From the reading I've done lately, switchable graphics are just now coming into their own. Nvidia Optimus in notebooks (only) now apparently does very nice automatic seamless switching between CPU and dedicated GPU. There are some good articles out there benchmarking the much improved battery life. When the next round of SSD are released, one will be able to buy a pretty sweet laptop: powerful when you need it, but super efficient when you don't, and fast always. I'm pretty certain I read (an article on anantech?) that graphics switching is explicitly not going to be supported on desktops until the next release of intel processors. Here it is: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i5-2600k-i5-2500k-and-core-i3-2100-tested http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-i... "Quick Sync with a Discrete GPU There’s just one hangup to all of this Quick Sync greatness: it only works if the processor’s GPU is enabled. In other words, on a desktop with a single monitor connected to a discrete GPU, you can’t use Quick Sync. This isn’t a problem for mobile since Sandy Bridge notebooks should support switchable graphics, meaning you can use Quick Sync without waking up the discrete GPU. However there’s no standardized switchable graphics for desktops yet. Intel indicated that we may see some switchable solutions in the coming months on the desktop, but until then you either have to use the integrated GPU alone or run a multimonitor setup with one monitor connected to Intel’s GPU in order to use Quick Sync."