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How to Switch Graphics Cards on MacBook: MacBook Pros with two built-in graphics cards can switch between a more powerful card and a less powerful card to save power. When you are traveling for work, it makes sense to use the graphics card that uses less power. This will keep your battery from dying too quickly.
By changing the settings in the Energy Saver Preferences, Apple has made it possible to switch between the two cards. This means that you can work on your computer for longer without having to plug it into an outlet. Here is where you can get for free. It’s a donationware app, so if you like it, give the developer a few bucks.
How to Switch Graphics Cards on MacBook
- When you install gfxGraphicsCardStatus, you’ll get a menu item that lets you switch between the integrated GPU and the discrete GPU.
- Install gfxCardStatus, and when the “i” menu appears in the Mac menu bar, click on it.
- Choose “Integrated” or “Discrete” or “Automatic Switching” to let Mac OS choose which GPU to use.
- Manually switch between the MacBook Pro GPU’s on demand through a menu bar application!
- gfxCardStatus tells you which card is currently in use by adjusting the menubar icon; showing an ‘i’ icon for the Intel HD GPU, and an ‘d’ icon for the discrete card, whether it’s an NVIDIA GeForce or an ATI or AMD card.
- Lists dependent processes to see which apps are currently using the discrete GPU processor.
How Does a Graphics Card Work?
The main job of a graphics card is to show images on a screen. This includes photos, videos, games, documents, your desktop, a file folder, and anything else. All of these things, from video games that require a lot of computing power to “simple” things like opening a new text document, need a graphics card.
So, the CPU tells the graphics card what needs to be displayed on the screen. The graphics card then takes these instructions and runs them through its own processing unit. This quickly updates its onboard memory, which is called VRAM, with information about which pixels on the screen need to be changed and how. This information is then sent quickly (via a cable) from your graphics card to your monitor, where it changes the images, lines, textures, lighting, shading, and everything else.
FAQs
The operating system uses one GPU to accelerate output to the screen, and only one GPU in the Mac Pro is connected to your monitor(s). The second GPU is for computation. It’s up to third-party software to utilize the second GPU to accelerate the tasks that are being undertaken.
If you’ve installed macOS Big Sur 11.4 or later, you can use these graphics cards that are based on the AMD Navi RDNA2 architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the AMD Radeon RX 6800, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, and AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT7. Full USB functionality is not supported on the card’s USB-C port.
Many 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops have two graphics processors (GPU) — a discrete GPU and an integrated GPU. The discrete GPU provides substantial graphics performance but uses more energy. The integrated GPU optimizes battery life by using less energy.