Graphically Long Battery Life
A recent editorial entitled "ATI and Nvidia should stop crowbarring desktop chips into laptops" over at The Inquirer got me thinking:
I have a confession to make. I am Fudo and I have Intel integrated in my notebook. I hate it, but my battery life doesn’t so I am stuck to it for a long time.
On top of it, a friend was asking me about which laptop to buy (Do you think he was surprised when I said Lenovo?). He said he wasn't a gamer, but still wanted a discrete (i.e. non-integrated) graphics card.
My friend also did not plan on watching an extensive amount of movies, regular or HD, which a discrete card would offer some benefit for versus integrated. Once I showed him the information below, he pretty quickly reprioritized his needs:
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Configuration
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ATI Mobility Radeon X1300
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Intel GMA 950
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ThinkPad R60, Core Duo T2300, 512MB RAM, 60GB HDD, DVD-ROM, ThinkPad a/b/g WiFi, 14" XGA, 9-cell battery |
4.6 hours |
7.8 hours |
These are a set of the official company numbers, so don't post asking me why your model doesn't get those numbers, the point here is to illustrate the difference between integrated and discrete graphics.
Clearly, those concerned with battery life and have no 3D performance needs have only one choice. For those who always asked "Why don't they put XYZ graphics card in a 12" notebook?", that is why! You've got to compromise somewhere when it comes to battery life, and the fact of the matter is you don't get something for nothing.
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
December 18th, 2006 12:32 pm
Sony has a nice solution in the form of their VAIO SZ notebook computer line. They allow you to switch between integrated and discrete graphics with a hardware switch, though I do believe you must restart the computer for the change to take effect. Unfortunately, I don’t think of Sony’s notebook computers as business quality machines (glossy screens, don’t have great customer support, etc.). I do realize that having both graphics systems on board adds weight, but it can’t be too much since their notebooks are light. It seems for most people’s needs, integrated graphics are fine, especially since the previous blog post is about how it performs well in Vista.
December 18th, 2006 1:41 pm
Thanks for this piece of knowledge to dispel my ignorance on this subject matter! One suggestion: it is best to keep the Thinkpad consumers informed about the consequence of choosing an integrated versus choosing a non-integrated graphic card
And I am just naive…
So can I have the integrated graphic component for work, and plug-in a beefy 3rd party 3D graphic card (through the pcmcia / expresscard slot?) while I am so stubbornly trying to play games on the Thinkpad? Or there’s no such technology?
December 19th, 2006 3:04 pm
You could just get a T60 with a 9 cell battery and an X1400. Customize the settings properly and you can get 6+ hours on battery, and when you’re plugged in you still have gaming performance. (I use the 2007-7JU)
December 19th, 2006 7:48 pm
Nicolo: If you have a T/Z series, you can use the advanced dock for this purpose. It has a PCI-e bay, which allows you to plug in a discrete graphics card (as long as they are low profile). PCMCIA cards are somewhat lackluster in performance, price, and feature set, but they are available as well. There is some discussion of the advanced dock’s bay on this page: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=22358
December 20th, 2006 11:14 pm
Michael: You are correct, Sony does have a solution like that and it does require a reboot. It isn’t the weight that would pose a problem (silicon is very light!), but (A) the complexity required in both hardware & software as well as (B) the circuit board space. There are rumors floating around the net that graphics companies are working on a solution to this.
Nicole: Andrew is spot on. The Advanced Dock allows for an external graphics card, which is a great solution for someone who wants integrated notebook graphics for long battery life. There are other unique solutions, but they are less than ideal for numerous reasons.
December 21st, 2006 8:06 am
I love the idea of a switchable GPU – i don’t really need more than the integrated most of the time but sometimes it is handy when doing photo / video work so I tend to try and get the ATI graphics whenever posssible.
Matt, i’d like to see a post on monitors if thats something that you deal with. I just got a D221 and its a lovely monitor, except for the hideous Lenovo branding on the back (reminds me too much of Dell and HP) and the stand, which not only isn’t firm enough to make the monitor straight but means the monitor can’t really be used without another monitor stand to sit it on, this is a step back from the L201p or even the L200p. The L201p stand was ugly as sin but was perfection from a usability and sturdiness point of view, the monitors from other vendors have been improving their stands to provide similar functionality and then Lenovo decides to produce probably the worst stand i have ever seen on an IBM/Lenovo Monitor. It just seems strange to ruin a nice monitor over something so simple, its like having a laptop with a bad keyboard or pointing device which is something Lenovo should understand.
December 23rd, 2006 5:14 am
Quite a few people are undervolting their laptop CPUs to improve battery life and reduce heat. Isn’t this sort of thing possible with discrete graphics processors, too? If you don’t need the graphics power, but your system has only a more powerful discrete graphics card, can’t you run the chip at a lower frequency and thus use less power?
December 23rd, 2006 5:44 pm
Elliot: I was just thinking about this possibility. Undervolting/clocking the CPU gives significant battery life improvements, but what about the GPU? Clearly the discrete chip uses a lot of power … so how, and by how much can we reduce it?
The simple solution is to use something like ATITool to manually adjust the core and memory clock. There are two problems with this approach, though. First, I can’t see any way to reduce the clock automatically when not using 3D. Second, mobile ATI chips use powerplay, which seems to override everything else. Disabling powerplay lets you toy with the settings, but they can no longer automatically change (as far as I can tell).
I’ve tried out ATITool, and it autodetects the stock core frequency at ~1.3GHz, which scares me a bit. In light of this, I’m not going to try it any further… the chip is already very hot at stock speeds of 342 MHz. Powerplay does seem to do a fairly good job, though: With no 3D, my T60 uses 0.97-1.04 A on battery. When I open the Catalyst control center utility, which has a small 3D applet running, that spikes up to ~1.25 for low quality settings, and ~1.38 for high quality. So powerplay saves me about 50 watts at idle. I don’t expect to save much more by further tweaking, as this is already close to the TDP of an x1400 (can’t find the exact figure, but 50w already seems high).
1.04 A –> 1.07 A stock
December 26th, 2006 9:19 am
There is one other aspect to keep in mind when choosing a graphics solution for your ThinkPad: external display options. I don’t know the exact technical reasons behind this, but only a discrete graphics chip will allow for an external TFT to be digitally attached to a port replicator / mini dock via DVI. The Intel GMA solution only supports analogue displays via VGA, the sharpness and general quality of which being _much_ lower than DVI.
January 2nd, 2007 1:57 am
My latest ThinkPad is the new T60p, and I absolutely love it (outside of some minor dock/undock strangeness with a second monitor.) I’m guessing the FireGL on this laptop helps to consume battery life. As GPU performance is generally lacking business laptops, it is nice to not worry about that. I guess I’ll carry the batteries and portable APC external battery as necessary. It isn’t ideal, but I would rather be working on the T60p and the 15″ lcd on a flight or at a coffee shop, than anything else.
Anyway, this is by far the best of the 6 TP’s I’ve used in the last 8 years. Keep up the incredible work.
January 8th, 2007 4:06 am
[...] After pricing a Thinkpad Z61m and a Latitude D620 (much lighter, much more expensive – especially after adding accidental protection), I decided to check to see if any OEMs that pre-install Linux could offer comparable prices. This was not so (issues of scale, I guess), but I was a bit surprised by one of the Google advertisements that appeared when I searched for "linux laptop." Since Dell offers the same craptastic Linux support ("we don't care if you use it, but we are not going to make it easy for you to do so because there are too few of us and Microsoft will kill us if we do so") as other major OEMs, I am not sure why they are advertising in the top position. I suspect that it may have been a mistake, since it no longer appears there now. I clicked on the ad just in case, but all they were offering were laptops preloaded with Windows XP Home or Media Center. Bleh. – [1] Since a majority of my readers will not be able to access this site, here are some of my grievances: Where are the Core 2 Duo processors? Where is the announced X60 tablet? If integrated graphics give more battery life, why do all of the high-end Thinkpads have discrete ATI cards? Why can't I get the same customizations as on the regular Lenovo website? tags: Dell, Lenovo, Thinkpads, Vista, T. T. the Bear’s [...]
January 16th, 2007 3:14 am
Tim, you mention dedicated graphics’ power requirements making them impractical vs. onboard for a 12″ notebook.
Is XGA vs. SXGA+ a similar story? I’ve often wondered why a higher resolution isn’t offered in the non-tablet X60.
January 16th, 2007 3:49 am
I have a hard time believing those numbers. I’ve had time on five T60 machines so far, incluing GMA950 and v5200. My experience is that the battery life is largely determined by screen brightness, CPU load, CPU speed (adaptive vs fixed high), and GPU tasking. I wonder if whoever came up with those “official” numbers arrived at them by running benchmarking software continuously until the battery died. If so, then my guess is that the x1400 would have done a lot more work in its 4.6 hours than the GMA did in its 7.8 hours.
In real-world use, the difference in battery life itsn’t nearly that great.
April 12th, 2007 6:13 am
I have to agree with previous commenter.
One set of battery life figures isn’t acceptable as of today since it’s pretty much games and benchmarks that take full use of it (high power req).
In future (say 3+ years) it’s possible that more apps start utilizing GPU for specific kind of workloads. But until then I would only look at what the integrated vs discrete solution power consumption is when a) not doing anything b) playing a movie that utilizes gpu in decoding c) playing a game or something along these lines.
September 9th, 2007 11:28 am
I disagree with previous commenter.
I don’t think that 7.8 hrs is under continuous benchmark load but rather browsing the web (or just idle).
April 28th, 2008 2:49 pm
To me, it sounded like the test was done with regular use, ie non-gaming use. It might even be safe to say that he just left the laptop on with certain lighting, internet adapter on, and played a movie on both laptop and left to see how long it would last. No where is it stated that condition of discrete laptop A is different than integrated laptop B. That would be the worst test condition. Also if you assume that he played games on both laptops then it would also be fair to say that integrated cards are superior for batteries if you aren’t a serious gamer. So his conclusion, you’ll see up to70% better battery life if gaming is a non-issue. The difference probably diminishes if you have worst battery. 70% of 2 hrs is 1hr 24 minutes longer but it is still noticeable. Another way to think of it as a gamer is that if you buy the discrete graphics laptop, you get up to 60% less battery time. The only solution then is to dual boot you discrete video card into an integrated one, not possible unless you got one a sony that have two video cards like most desktops(if this is true) or anticipating Nvida hybridpower, to hit the laptop market sometime next year after they’ve tested the desktop versions.
July 25th, 2009 9:45 pm
The biggest reason I’ve been seeking out a laptop with dedicated graphics is because I understand that intel graphics will not allow me to hook my laptop up to a 2nd widescreen monitor. Is this correct or do the new chips allow this? If so, which ones? I would be very appreciative to get a response on this one. Thanks.