Does the dedicated graphics card power 1680 x 1050 on cMBP?

[ConscienceNL]

I'm about to buy the base cMBP with 8GB RAM and the High Res screen. It also has the dedicated NVIDIA card with 512MB of VRAM. I wonder, does the Intel 4000 HD card power the higher resolution, or the NVIDIA card? If it's the last one, will 512MB be enough for everything to be smooth on 1680 x 1050?

 

[leman]

HD 4000 is used by default, the dedicated card only jumps in when performance is needed. A full 1680 x 1050 display framebuffer takes less then 7MB of video RAM. Think again if 512MB VRAM is enough in this case

 

[InuNacho]

The HD 3000 in my 17 inch powers it's native 1920 x 1200 just fine, play Unreal 2004 using just the 3000 a couple times and manage to squeeze out 200+ FPS.

Yea using a 8 year old game isn't a super great test but it's the only game I have on here.

 

[Exana]

2 years old HD Graphics with first gen Core i5/i7 mobile already handle 1680x1050 and even 1920x1200. BTW, ten years ago my Thinkpad A21p already have a 1600x1200 screen with dedicated GPU. So nowadays, driving this kind of screen is easy.