Question about Nvidia's Optimus technology

[Matt12345170]

Hello

I am in the market for a new notebook, and I am stuck. The site that I am buying off of recently updated to allow you to chose the GTX 680M, and as much as I would love to stick with Nvidia, upgrading to it would cost a whopping $400 more where as upgrading to the 7970M would only cost $~80 more. From what I have read, the framerates that the cards offer are comparable, with the 7970M actually beating out the GTX 680M in some scenario's.

Therefore, I am going to base my final decision on Nvidia's Optimus Technology, does anybody know how much of an increased battery life I would be looking at when I am not doing tasks that are graphically demanding?

AND

I read a little bit about AMD's 'Optimus' like technology, and heard that there are still a lot of problems with it. Does anybody have any experience with it! It would greatly influence my final decision if it works well!

Thanks,

Matt

 

[bluebob951]

Optimus will increase battery life, it really depends on what are your other specs on the laptop you are choosing. And is an additional 300+ dollars really worth the optimus technology and the 680m when the 7970m is almost as good for cheaper? As long as there are powersaving features enabled for both chip you should see pretty decent battery life depending on the rest of the computers config.

 

[Matt12345170]

Yes, due to the price, I think I may just go with the 7970M, however I started reading about "Enduro" and it seems like this would be the best solution, but it would still be interesting to know how much more battery life it would provide.

I'll include the specs of the computer as well

Screen Size: 17.3" (1920x1080)
CPU: Intel i7-3720QM
GPU:7970M
Ram: 16GB
HHD: 720GB 7200RPM
SSD: 120GB Intel 520

and the battery is a 8 Cell Smart Lithium-Ion battery pack 76.96Wh

 

[bluebob951]

you're looking at only about an hour of battery life with every power saving feature off. I would guess 2-3 hours depending on usage and screen brightness.

 

[DELL-Zohaib R]

[FONT=Arial]Hi Matt12345170,[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]It is hard to tell how much extra battery life you will get with nVidia Optimus technology enabled as this technology helps you save more of battery if you configure your machine to work with less battery usage for each graphics application. For more details on nVidia Optimus technology you can go through the following link:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=125975[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Thanks & Regards
Dell_Zohaib_R
Dell Social Media Responder[/FONT]