gfxCardStatus app, recommended for new i5/i7 MBP owners?

[bitninja]

thanks cody! i also love it!

No problem at all, good sir.

 

[entatlrg]

I thank you! Apple should too!!

I finally gave in and bought an i7 15" MBP ... had to check it out for myself.

Coming from an '09 C2D the i7 is a good improvement, *BUT* sitting with the new i7 on my laptop for a few hours my left leg was cooking. Kind of disappointing really, I like everything else about the machine.

I've been following the threads on gfxCardStatus and decided to try it as a last resort.

It worked! The i7 is MUCH cooler on my lap now, just like my old MBP is in integrated mode.

THANK YOU, it saved me the hassle of a return. I'm heading back to donate. Apple should be pleased to, your software is saving them returns I'm sure.

 

[Mirabella]

I've been using gfxCardStatus for about a week, now. It's been working for me without any problems. I came to find out that my laptop was running on the NVIDIA card all the time, due to some legacy Palm software. After getting rid of that, the dynamic switching now works perfectly.

My computer actually still ran fairly cool (enclosure base temperature in the 80s, Fahrenheit), even with the NVIDIA card selected.

As for battery life: I've tried 2 tests. The intensive one involved watching a DVD movie (Pan's Labyrinth) with the screen at full brightness and the sound turned up, and then working in Photoshop, all while keeping the computer on the NVIDIA card. Doing this, I got 4 hours 16 minutes of battery life. The light test involved using the computer for just light stuff, such as surfing the internet, with the screen brightness less than half, while keeping the computer on the Intel card. Doing this, I got exactly 7 hours of battery life (using an i7 17" 2010 MBP).

Anyway, I'm well pleased with gfxCardStatus, and it has been helpful for me.

Thank you, Cody and Ah~!

 

[Ronnoco]

I've been using gfxCardStatus for about a week, now. It's been working for me without any problems. I came to find out that my laptop was running on the NVIDIA card all the time, due to some legacy Palm software. After getting rid of that, the dynamic switching now works perfectly.

My computer actually still ran fairly cool (enclosure base temperature in the 80s, Fahrenheit), even with the NVIDIA card selected.

As for battery life: I've tried 2 tests. The intensive one involved watching a DVD movie (Pan's Labyrinth) with the screen at full brightness and the sound turned up, and then working in Photoshop, all while keeping the computer on the NVIDIA card. Doing this, I got 4 hours 16 minutes of battery life. The light test involved using the computer for just light stuff, such as surfing the internet, with the screen brightness less than half, while keeping the computer on the Intel card. Doing this, I got exactly 7 hours of battery life (using an i7 17" 2010 MBP).

Anyway, I'm well pleased with gfxCardStatus, and it has been helpful for me.

Thank you, Cody and Ah~!

I wanted to do a full battery calibration last night so I unplugged the MagSafe from my MacBook Pro and with GPUInfoMenu set to the "Use Integrated On Battery" setting, display on a little over half brightness, keyboard backlight off, Wifi on, Bluetooth off, proceeded to watch 6 one hour episodes of a tv show in full screen using QT-10 player (the episodes had the commercials taken out, so they averaged about 45 minutes each), did some emailing, and some web surfing, my battery lasted a little over 6 hours before forced sleep...
I was quite happy with that especially while watching nearly 5 hours of full screen video (that would be about the equivalent of a nonstop LA to NY flight)...I travel to the east coast quite a bit from San Diego and LA and I am more accustomed to getting just over 2 hours of video watching with my former Mac laptops...6 hours is a terrific improvement for me!!!
Note: Had I turned WiFi off during my video watching I'd have probably gotten another 30 to 45 minutes of battery time...

 

[Jof]

I finally gave in and bought an i7 15" MBP ... had to check it out for myself.

Coming from an '09 C2D the i7 is a good improvement, *BUT* sitting with the new i7 on my laptop for a few hours my left leg was cooking. Kind of disappointing really, I like everything else about the machine.

There's probably a trillion posts about this elsewhere, but I've found that the CPU is the biggest heat source for me. What I've noticed happening is one process taking up excessive time on one of the threads... this is often Flash, actually. Once that happens, the CPU seems to ramp up to the demand and kick out heat like it was working at a much higher level.

If I turn off the nvidia chip AND keep an eye on CPU my MBP often runs at 40-50degrees which is pretty amazing IMO.

 

[bitninja]

I finally gave in and bought an i7 15" MBP ... had to check it out for myself.

Coming from an '09 C2D the i7 is a good improvement, *BUT* sitting with the new i7 on my laptop for a few hours my left leg was cooking. Kind of disappointing really, I like everything else about the machine.

I've been following the threads on gfxCardStatus and decided to try it as a last resort.

It worked! The i7 is MUCH cooler on my lap now, just like my old MBP is in integrated mode.

THANK YOU, it saved me the hassle of a return. I'm heading back to donate. Apple should be pleased to, your software is saving them returns I'm sure.

I've been using gfxCardStatus for about a week, now. It's been working for me without any problems. I came to find out that my laptop was running on the NVIDIA card all the time, due to some legacy Palm software. After getting rid of that, the dynamic switching now works perfectly.

My computer actually still ran fairly cool (enclosure base temperature in the 80s, Fahrenheit), even with the NVIDIA card selected.

As for battery life: I've tried 2 tests. The intensive one involved watching a DVD movie (Pan's Labyrinth) with the screen at full brightness and the sound turned up, and then working in Photoshop, all while keeping the computer on the NVIDIA card. Doing this, I got 4 hours 16 minutes of battery life. The light test involved using the computer for just light stuff, such as surfing the internet, with the screen brightness less than half, while keeping the computer on the Intel card. Doing this, I got exactly 7 hours of battery life (using an i7 17" 2010 MBP).

Anyway, I'm well pleased with gfxCardStatus, and it has been helpful for me.

Thank you, Cody and Ah~!

No problem! I'm glad gfxCardStatus helped you make the decision, entatlrg! Thanks for the praise, both of you.

There's probably a trillion posts about this elsewhere, but I've found that the CPU is the biggest heat source for me. What I've noticed happening is one process taking up excessive time on one of the threads... this is often Flash, actually. Once that happens, the CPU seems to ramp up to the demand and kick out heat like it was working at a much higher level.

If I turn off the nvidia chip AND keep an eye on CPU my MBP often runs at 40-50degrees which is pretty amazing IMO.

Yeah, definitely the coolest machine I've ever used in terms of temperature.

 

[tombilske]

thankyou so much cody for your app, its allowed me to use my computer for much longer without having to find a power source.

im sure this has been asked many times but is there a functionality coming to gfxCardStatus that will automatically force the intel card on when the computer is on battery life, and switch when its plugged in or something like that? that would be extremely useful and a great addition to an already amazing application. just something to think about

again, thankyou so much for your app

 

[bitninja]

thankyou so much cody for your app, its allowed me to use my computer for much longer without having to find a power source.

im sure this has been asked many times but is there a functionality coming to gfxCardStatus that will automatically force the intel card on when the computer is on battery life, and switch when its plugged in or something like that? that would be extremely useful and a great addition to an already amazing application. just something to think about

again, thankyou so much for your app

Sure! And yes, power source-based switching is coming in a future update.