Thoughts
NVIDIA first properly addressed the need to toggle between integrated and dedicated mobile graphics on mid-to-high-end notebooks with its Switchable Graphics technology, released in 2007.The reason for debuting the technology still lies with the fact that discrete mobile GPUs (mGPUs) are considerably better at rendering games and running GPU-accelerated workloads than their integrated counterparts, but the cost of doing so is manifested in greater power-draw and shorter battery life. Not a problem when on the mains power, yet very pertinent if mains-free.
When running a laptop in battery mode, Switchable Graphics aims to strike an optimum balance by switching off the mGPU when its heavy-duty performance is not required, so whilst the latest iteration of the technology offers a one-touch solution, there exist significant drawbacks that may not be obvious to the novice user - screen flicker, transition time, and the need, sometimes, to manually toggle states are to name but three.
Hoping to simplify matters with a transparent, intuitive system, NVIDIA is rolling in Optimus technology into a number of NVIDIA mGPU-powered premium laptops, to be made available to the public in summer 2010.
On a hardware level, Optimus works by having commonality in how the IGP and mGPU display the output, where, put very simply, the discrete card uses the IGP's video-transport system when activated but is switched off at all other times.
The benefit of such an approach, as we have observed, is a system where the user is completely oblivious as to how the output is generated. GPU-heavy tasks are run on the mGPU and basic imagery on the IGP, with the notebook resorting to the lower-power IGP whenever possible, to increase mobile battery life.
After a hands-on play with an Optimus-toting ASUS laptop we come away with a positive impression. This isn't ground-breaking tech; it won't make your games run faster or your laptop to have increased battery life if running solely on the IGP. Rather, Optimus helps premium laptops to function the way they were designed to do.
The technology will be rolled into next-generation ION and future iterations of a broad range of mobile NVIDIA GPUs. We just hope that NVIDIA extends it to the desktop, as well, because saving power is a selling point, and it may help NVIDIA shift a few extra GeForce cards to boot.
Optimus is easy-to-understand NVIDIA-only technology that makes sense. Its very success is the transparency - something that will give NVIDIA's marketing team a few headaches. From what we have seen, it works, and works well, and should sound the death-knell to previous iterations of Switchable Graphics.
Bottom line: the £750 laptop that you could purchase in August 2010 may be outfitted with Optimus technology, but, if NVIDIA succeeds, you may never know it's there.
NVIDIA Optimus technology
