Does Optimus have a significant impact on battery life?

Hi,

I'm planning to buy a laptop in the coming months (it will also be my first one). As I will be going abroad to university I need one which is capable of running new games on high quality, but the battery life has to be decent too. So far the Sager NP9150 / Clevo P150EM seems to be a great choice with the GeForce GTX 675M, because the 600 series now includes the Optimus technology on high end GPUs too.

I'm not quite sure about the actual battery life increase that Optimus can provide though (I will wait for the Ivy Bridge CPUs, so I guess the integrated GPU will consume even less power than with SB). So my question is, could the NP9150 last 4+ hours with Optimus on and low brightness or should I aim for a more 'balanced' laptop with weaker graphics? Also, does AMD have an Optimus-like solution in their GPUs (because the 7970m seems quite temping then)?

 

do NOT get 675m over 7970m, the performance increase of 7970m is a screaming +60% over 675m (or 580m as it is an exact rebadge of 580m)

 

according to slickdude80's real world tests the 7970 is on par with TWO 580/675's in SLI. and yes AMD has graphics switching but the official drivers for it arent released yet

have a read, warning its long
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/658185-amd-7970m-vs-gtx-680m.html

 

I've already read through the majority of that thread, but why I wasn't sure of the 7970m being the better straight up, because I didn't know if it had some sort of power saving method. As I'll be using this laptop for studies too I need it to have a decent battery life and it is top priority, even over GPU power if needed and I only knew about Nvidia's Optimus..

Also, I know that the 675m is a rebadge, but it has Optimus which is the important thing for me. Is there a release date for the AMD GPU swithing driver yet btw?

 

AMD also have "Optimus" but its called PowerXPress

 

I've done a search on that and it seems basically identical to Optimus really, so that's great.
However does this mean that the 2-3 hour battery life for the NP9150 on it's spec sheet has Optimus taken into account (because I would need around 4 hours..) ?

 

trust me buddy, if you choose 675m over 7970m, you will end up regretting it, and pretty soon...

 

Clevo/Sager laptops with 7970m will not have switchable graphics. Only Intel/nVidia ones do, and will use Optimus. But about battery life. Optimus will use the HD 4000 on battery (integrated GPU) which will make battery life significantly better than using a dedicated gpu which will consume 20W even at idle plus CPU power consumption, compared to the CPU + IGP only consuming maybe 15W at idle.

 

im not so sure, some AW's have AMD's graphics switching as does the sony SA intel cpu + amd video
m17x with 6970 and 6990 have dynamic switching working

 

It may on other brands, but I guess I was referring to OP's consideration of the Sager/Clevo. This was asked recently in the Clevo/Sager section and resellers responded that there would be no switchable graphics with Intel/Radeon combo. HP also has Intel with AMD graphics working, but for whatever reason Clevo is stubborn with this kind of stuff, which is too bad.

 

I have the same exact question - what would your recommended course of action be? As tempting as the power advantage that the 7970 has may be, as a student, battery life is crucial to me. Would getting the 675M suffice my needs? (Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, etc.) Or will the 7970 provide enough battery?

How many more hours do you think Optimus will get me over the ATI chip?

And thanks ahead of time for the answers!

 

Isn't switchable graphics turned on by a driver that supports it? If yes couldn't that driver be somehow installed to a Sager (as I said I don't have any experience with laptops..) ?

 

It's a combination of the BIOS, software, and hardware and not as simple as installing software to turn it on. One question I have about the latest iteration of AMD's auto switching: Does the 7000 series of mobile GPUs fix the problem of OpenGL applications and games only running on the IGP?

 

once slickdude80 gets a proper driver for his m17x im sure he will let us know. with his intel turned off it sure blows through openGL, but his driver was hacked together until the card was officially released

 

Seems like the 7970m will feature some sort of power saving technology after all :
AMD announces Radeon HD 7000M series with Enduro graphics-switching technology -- Engadget

 

Good find! Although all depends on if manufacturers decide to implement it.