Battery life, discrete vs integrated

Hi,

I recently got a 15" Macbook Pro (MacBookPro8,2 2.2GHz).

It seems that most of the time, I get longer battery life when using the discrete gfx, and shorter when using integrated (discrete is AMD Radeon HD 6750, integrated is Intel HD Graphics 3000). At least this is true when I watch videos of any kind; whether it is YouTube or local video files.

I use gfxCardStatus to switch between cards.

Should I suspect that there is something wrong with the machine?

Thanks in advance.

anderssonj.com said:

It seems that most of the time, I get longer battery life when using the discrete gfx, and shorter when using integrated (discrete is AMD Radeon HD 6750, integrated is Intel HD Graphics 3000). At least this is true when I watch videos of any kind; whether it is YouTube or local video files.

Click to expand...

You should get better battery life with the integrated graphics. When you say that you seem to get less battery life with the integrated graphics vs. the discrete graphics you REALLY need to do this testing VERY scientifically.

What I mean is...the two tests:

- test 1 using the integrated graphics
- test 2 with the discrete graphics

Both tests & both setups need to be EXACTLY the same...no differences. This cannot be a casual or impromptu sort of testing...otherwise you will get confusing/unreliable results.

You really should be getting better battery life with the integrated graphics...and I'm thinking that the testing conditions being used are not consistent...which leads to confusing results.

- Nick

You're right; I need to do more formal testing before I can come to any conclusions.

I had this notion in my head that perhaps video decoding, at least HD video, is done more efficiently (both time and energy-wise) in the discrete card, and that that could be an explanation. But that's really just guesswork.


Thanks for your reply!