Discreet GPU idle power usage

[maddogmcgee]

Hi

In Australia it is impossible to buy a 4700u based 14 inch laptop at the moment so I am thinking about getting an Ideapad Slim with an I5 and a mx 350. The graphics card is mainly to ensure I can play card basic games without an issue. Most of the laptops life will be spent running Chrome, Word and Internet Explorer (LOL) as a work PC.

My question is, how much power will a MX 350 use when idle? I am assuming I can setup the computer to only use integrated graphics unless told otherwise but would also assume that the card is using some power anyway? If the GPU is going to take off a few hours of battery life than it is properly not worth it for me

Thanks

 

[IntelUser2000]

Based on reviews, there's a measurable impact of battery life on such usage scenarios on systems with dGPUs. But not huge.

But most are quite acceptable considering how good laptops are nowadays. If an iGPU only laptop gets 10 hours of battery life, a dGPU one may get 8-9 hours.

And yes, there's no way to totally turn off the GPU without not having it in the first place. Don't use device manager to manually disable the dGPU as that'll make it worse - let the driver manage it itself. It probably has an option for you to switch to an iGPU in the application.