4 ms·

I was talking about video playback tests. Unless they disabled discrete GPUs during the test,a laptop using 3080Ti for video playback is not going to be efficie

I was talking about video playback tests. Unless they disabled discrete GPUs during the test,a laptop using 3080Ti for video playback is not going to be efficient.

MBCook 5y ago
This article is about the Intel comparison but isn’t that one Nvidia’s fault? We all know GPUs burn watts when being heavily used. But when a laptop GPU is just showing a video shouldn’t it be able to scale down pretty far? If I’m just surfing the web or working in Word I wouldn’t want my laptop GPU using 15-20 watts. Surely it can get down to like 2 watts right? Or less?
- na85 5y ago
  2 watts total? I doubt it. The display is a major drain. I went down this rabbit hole years ago and on a 2012-vintage X220 with an i7 I could get it down to just under 6W with the display on minimum brightness, the wifi and Bluetooth off, and a host of configuration options including but not limited to what's available through Powertop and TLP. I'm sure it's better than 5W and change nowadays but the display is by far the biggest draw and I don't think you'll get down to 2W.
  - MBCook 5y ago
    Oh, I meant GPU only. Sorry. Yeah a well lit display can be a huge drain, but of course I can control that. I would hope WiFi/BT don’t use much relative to CPU/display, but I can’t claim to know.
  - na85 5y ago
    Ah yeah, maybe GPU only. Don't the MacBooks with the onboard discrete GPU have an integrated Intel GPU as well? I'd assume those ones physically power off the big daddy card when it's not needed.
    - MBCook 5y ago
      They used to. That’s how they worked but it ended up more trouble than it’s worth. I think they stopped trying to switch it on/off during the Intel era (not sure) but there are no discrete GPUs in the M1 era so far.
Miraste 5y ago
It would’ve been nice if they specified but it was probably using the Intel iGPU for video playback. Those results would line up with last year’s laptops in integrated mode. Even with comparable hardware the MacBook is literally 3x as efficient. In my experience if the dGPU is on at all it won’t get 6 hours of anything.

I was talking about video playback tests. Unless they disabled discrete GPUs during the test,a laptop using 3080Ti for video playback is not going to be efficient.

MBCook 5y ago

This article is about the Intel comparison but isn’t that one Nvidia’s fault? We all know GPUs burn watts when being heavily used. But when a laptop GPU is just showing a video shouldn’t it be able to scale down pretty far? If I’m just surfing the web or working in Word I wouldn’t want my laptop GPU using 15-20 watts. Surely it can get down to like 2 watts right? Or less?

na85 5y ago
2 watts total? I doubt it. The display is a major drain. I went down this rabbit hole years ago and on a 2012-vintage X220 with an i7 I could get it down to just under 6W with the display on minimum brightness, the wifi and Bluetooth off, and a host of configuration options including but not limited to what's available through Powertop and TLP. I'm sure it's better than 5W and change nowadays but the display is by far the biggest draw and I don't think you'll get down to 2W.
- MBCook 5y ago
  Oh, I meant GPU only. Sorry. Yeah a well lit display can be a huge drain, but of course I can control that. I would hope WiFi/BT don’t use much relative to CPU/display, but I can’t claim to know.
- na85 5y ago
  Ah yeah, maybe GPU only. Don't the MacBooks with the onboard discrete GPU have an integrated Intel GPU as well? I'd assume those ones physically power off the big daddy card when it's not needed.
  - MBCook 5y ago
    They used to. That’s how they worked but it ended up more trouble than it’s worth. I think they stopped trying to switch it on/off during the Intel era (not sure) but there are no discrete GPUs in the M1 era so far.

Miraste 5y ago

It would’ve been nice if they specified but it was probably using the Intel iGPU for video playback. Those results would line up with last year’s laptops in integrated mode. Even with comparable hardware the MacBook is literally 3x as efficient. In my experience if the dGPU is on at all it won’t get 6 hours of anything.