Question about discreet laptop graphics

[GTaudiophile]

I am strongly looking at the ASUS UX301 laptop. Its most expensive version comes with discreet nVidia GTM 7-series graphics. I am not really interested in gaming with BUT I am curious as to what extent discreet graphics are used in 2D applications like Photoshop 5.5? Does the CPU offload some work to the GPU? Does having discreet graphics offer any benefits over Haswell in the 2D space? Thanks.

 

[GTRagnarok]

Actually, the UX301 doesn't have the discrete GPU. It's the UX302LG that has it.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Thanks but the question still applies. I may consider the 302 as well.

 

[KentState]

Depends on if the app can handle CUDA or other functions. Windows GUI is hardware accelerated I believe and leverages either the integrated GPU or dedicated. The biggest thing to consider is that a dedicated card can draw more power, giving less battery life. Fortunately, Nvidia does a good job of using the integrated GPU unless playing a game, but you have to manually adjust profiles for applications to leverage it.

The Optimus technology works really well on mine. I can easily get 5+ hours of Windows only use.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/optimus_technology.html