I mean, in a laptop, you dont use the dGPU on battery unless its for compute, period. It should just be sitting there turned off (which indeed means you dont want it). But if its sucking any power, thats a bug.
That being said, Firefox and Chromium use the integrated GPU more than you think, and they feel faster with a stronger IGP. Just try disabling some of the gpu acceleration and see how it feels.
On my nvidia thinkpad I have had to completely disable the integrated GPU in bios and use discrete only due to constant bugs with hybrid graphics on Linux. This means my battery life is less than two hours.
I haven't noticed any difference between an i5-8500 with its integrated GPU and my gaming PC with an RX5000 something. Both running latest windows and edge.
They actually feel similar to Firefox running on Linux on an i5-6500's IGP.
It probably depends on the websites you visit. The only thing better on the newer ones is video decoding for YouTube or the like. I usually actively avoid websites with animations and other similar stuff as I find them very unpleasant to use. But I've noticed those typically tend to use the CPU, even on a Zen3 or Intel 11th gen IGP, even on Windows + Edge.
That is not how GPU multiplexing works on Laptops. My dGPU most certainly works on battery, though I can directly disable it if I like (or use a power saving power plan).
For example, I could disable the nvidia card on my ThinkPad W530, but then i'd lose the use of the external video output (because it was wired to the nvidia card).
and yes i know it depends on whether the laptop has a mux or not... it's not always easy to determine, not all reviews go explicitly over this detail...
I just don't want a discrete graphics card. Not an nVidia one for sure.
It works, but it sucks power like no tomorrow if it actually stays on. Its basically unusable if you want more than hour or two of battery life (or you use it in short bursts for compute).
> That being said, Firefox and Chromium use the integrated GPU more than you think, and they feel faster with a stronger IGP. Just try disabling some of the gpu acceleration and see how it feels.
i have strongs doubts the doxygen webpages i spend time on will get any faster with an nvidia 3090.
That being said, Firefox and Chromium use the integrated GPU more than you think, and they feel faster with a stronger IGP. Just try disabling some of the gpu acceleration and see how it feels.