Mac OS X automatically switches between the available graphics cards. Most 15"/17" MacBook Pros sold since 2009, if I remember correctly, have 2 graphics cards - one discrete card that is very powerful, but somewhat power-hungry, and an integrated one that is much less powerful but draws less power. well, now that you mention it, I guess it's only been about 2 years :) How many people have multiple graphics cards?Haha. GfxCardStatus is a free download from creator Cody Krieger's website. I simply didn't have the stamina to test that claim, but I did make one nine-hour run with OS X reporting a nine percent remaining battery capacity. Turning down screen brightness to just two "dots," a technique I often use to maximize battery life when using a MacBook Air during conferences, caused OS X to report potential battery life as high as 10 hours. I was consistently able to get between 8 and 8.5 hours of continuous use from the Retina MacBook Pro when running integrated graphics only.
gfxCardStatus is a menu bar application for OS X that allows MacBook Pro owners to view which GPU is in use at a glance, and switch between them on-demand.Īrs Technica has much more, including the fact that the Retina MacBook Pro can be pushed to nearly 10 hours of battery life with some minor battery saving techniques: By more precisely controlling when each graphics card is enabled, users can improve system performance or battery life. GfxCardStatus allows users to control which graphics card is enabled - integrated or discrete - on MacBook Pro models with multiple graphics cards.
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