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Battery life with dedicated vs. integrated graphics

post #1 of 9
3/19/06 at 4:03am
Thread Starter 
I realize that it will likely be different between more vs. less powerful cards e.g. 7800 vs x1400 but I was curious how much (ballpark figure) diff in battery time there would be compared with an integrated option.

Basically, battery life is important to me and since I don't game integrated graphics shouldn't be a problem. However I'd also like the option to run all of Vista's bells and whistles if I so choose when it is released [if I choose to upgrade as I'm quite happy with XP Pro].

Thanks.
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post #2 of 9
3/19/06 at 12:09pm
To run Vista with "all the bells and whistles" you're best off getting a dedicated card for sure.
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post #3 of 9
3/19/06 at 12:23pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the reply although I figured as much.

I guess that my question isn't "do I need dedicated for all of Vista's graphical enhancements?" but rather how much of an impact dedicated will have on battery life as a tradeoff.

Obvious exaggeration here, but if dedicated would cut my battery life from 4 hours to 2.5-3 it might sway my decision towards getting integrated a lot more than if it would only drop it down to 3.5
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post #4 of 9
3/19/06 at 1:08pm
Not much. Video only drains battery when it runs at full speed in games and high-end video-consuming applications like that. Vista, despite what many like to say, will NOT be a big resource hog in terms of video when you're just running the system itself. It's just that a dedicated card will always have more support for the various things the GUI is capable of displaying than an integrated card would have.

Oh and remember, integrated will only drain less if you turn off the heavy features that it wouldn't support anyway. You can still turn those features off with a dedicated card, and retain the battery life. You don't lose anything by going with a dedicated card.
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post #5 of 9
3/19/06 at 1:37pm
I don't know if that's true what you say lostpatrol. HP nc8230 and nw8240 are almost identical machines except for the graphics card (x600 vs. FireGL V5000 - X700 equivalent), and average operating powers are given as:
* nc8230: 25W
* nw8240: 28.5 W

Of course, "average" holds maximum power consumption within it, so the idle consumption on both machines could be the same. But in any case, I would be careful in saying that more powerful graphics cards wouldn't reduce battery life.
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post #6 of 9
3/19/06 at 2:10pm
Just because it's more powerful doesn't mean it uses more power to do the smaller task--that would be ounterproductive to the idea of a more powerful card anyway. It's common sense that a task that takes X power would take up the same on either card, so long as both cards can support all the same features of it, as would happen with the "bells and whistles" being disabled in Vista.
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post #7 of 9
3/28/06 at 11:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thelostpatrol
Just because it's more powerful doesn't mean it uses more power to do the smaller task--that would be ounterproductive to the idea of a more powerful card anyway. It's common sense that a task that takes X power would take up the same on either card, so long as both cards can support all the same features of it, as would happen with the "bells and whistles" being disabled in Vista.
Thats wrong for almost all common silicon chips available at the market at the moment as the "special" functions making a chip calculate some things faster need more transistors which need energy and as long as you don't include really good powersavingfunctions into it you will need more power to run the "better" graphics chip even when doing the same stuff as the "not so good" chip.
Sure it is possible to use powersaving features in chips, but atm they still ain't that good.
So normally the integrated graphics need less power than the dedicated.
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post #8 of 9
3/29/06 at 11:25am
I believe dedicated graphics cuts battery life for sure. My Z70Va with the X700 and a 69Wh battery can only get 3:30 with the screen at max brightness.

I then had the opportunity to use my school's 15.4" Acer Travelmate 4101 with integrated GMA900 graphics and a 65Wh battery. Not a good controlled comparison since it only had a WXGA screen (vs WSXGA+), 512MB of ram (vs 1GB), different wireless cards (intel vs atheros), and different 5400rpm hard drives but those things could hardly be the cause of the 1.5 hours better battery life. Both screens were set at max brightness and looked the same brightness. Both CPU's downclocked to 800MHz on battery and my CPU was even underclocked to 0.748v versus the 0.988v on the Acer. I would have to turn off my screen to match the battery life of the Acer.
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post #9 of 9
3/30/06 at 6:28pm
Its best to read up a review of the Sony SZ models where it has both integrated and dedicated graphics in one machine. Thats right it has two graphics and you the user is given the option to choose either as needed. There is a significant battery increase with integrated graphics.

Dedicated video do comsume more.. Generally the more powerful the dedicated video the more power it consumes.
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