Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

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There's no good story about switchable graphics still, even after all these years. My 2010 HP Envy had both an integrated GPU and discrete ATI Radeon, and a custom driver from HP/ATI that gave you a tray icon to switch between them. Worked great in 2010, but the fact that a custom driver was required meant in the following years I had trouble with newer games, and the computer barely functioned at all in Windows 8, often booting to a black screen even in safe mode.

As for the "who buys an i7 for battery?" -- well, I do. You don't have to choose between battery and performance with Haswell CPUs. I finally gave up on discrete graphics to get an ASUS UX301LA -- an i7-4558u that gives me 8 hours of battery life in an ultra-thin ultrabook form factor, yet the Intel Iris* GPU is faster than the discrete Radeon of my 2010 laptop. Games like Starcraft/Diablo that don't push boundaries run perfectly at the native 2560x1440.

If Intel's integrated GPUs keep improving as much as they did this generation over the last, the days of discrete mobile GPUs are numbered.

It looks like Google fails to correctly decipher Intel Isis (probably because it is still new). If you were searching Intel Isis, OP probably meant Intel Iris[0]. Intel Iris and Intel Iris Pro were introduced with Haswell processors.

> Intel Iris Graphics and Intel Iris Pro Graphics are new brands for Intel's high-end integrated graphics introduced with some variants of its Haswell processors. They utilize the same basic blocks as the HD series, but have a higher maximum frequency, and additional eDRAM cache for the "Pro" series.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HD_and_Iris_Graphics

The Iris Pro with eDRAM (Crystalwell?) is an interesting offer from Intel. If I was in the market for a new laptop this year, I'd be keeping an eye out for those Haswell refresh or maybe a Broadwell based laptops, similar to the newest Macbook Pro.

Edit: this is what I mean (and now want):

https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1

Unfortunately the Iris Pro comes with a much higher TDP, which means significantly shorter battery life and higher heat dissipation needs than all the other Haswell i5/i7 parts (47W vs 15 or 28). You won't find it in an ultrabook due to the heat, and you won't get the battery life benefits Haswell brought over previous architectures. The non-Pro Iris part is the better compromise IMO; you can find it in the thin-and-light form factor, it's much lower power so you can still get 6-8 hours of battery life, and it's still fast enough for most new games.

Very intriguing laptop. What bugs me is that I cannot find a screenshot of their keyboard layout on their website. I had to look for a review with a screenshot of the keyboard to see the layout. As someone who types primarily with the right shift key, I cannot use a laptop if the right shift key is cut short which is the majority of them (including this System76 model).

I've never had a problem with switchable graphics on OS X.

I always heard lots of complaints that random apps that don't seem like they should need the dedicated GPU would use it, which would spin up the fans and drain the battery.

This is why I've been holding off on a new notebook for almost a year. If Broadwell is half as good as it should be, it should be offering midrange discrete class GPU horsepower on their highest end graphics chipsets, and the tdp won't be absurd like the gaming notebooks that last half an hour off the wall.

I'd also be interested in low power Kaveri parts from AMD, since that fab process is proving itself more efficient at lower TDP.

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