What is the MUX switch of the gaming notebook computer?

Gaming laptops have become so advanced over the past few years that a desktop PC is no longer necessary for most workloads. Most gaming laptops come with all the latest features like variable refresh rate displays, desktop-class CPUs, and some even come with mechanical keyboards. But in this new feature story, the most talked about addition in recent years isn’t high refresh rate displays or ray-traced graphics, but a regular add-on called a “MUX switch.” This gives gaming laptops the ability to bypass integrated graphics and use discrete graphics to provide near-instantaneous performance benefits. Today, almost every laptop reviewer declares a MUX switch to be a must-have feature for gaming laptops. But how do MUX switches work? Should you actually look for this feature when buying your next laptop?That’s exactly what we want to answer in this MUX switch discussion.

Gaming Laptop MUX Switch : Explained (2022)

In this article, we’ll explore every aspect of the fascinating thing that is the MUX switch, from its history to its inner workings. We also answer various questions that many PC enthusiasts may have, such as how to tell if your laptop has a MUX switch. If so, how can you activate the MUX switch?The aim is to provide you with all the important facts about the MUX switch so that you understand its advantages and limitations. If you’re looking for specific answers, use the table of contents to navigate to the section that interests you.

What is a laptop MUX switch?

Before we look at the interesting history of MUX switches, we first need to clearly understand what they are. MUX, short for “ multiplexer ,” is a toggle that allows users to choose between running their laptop display via the iGPU (also known as Optimus or hybrid mode) or a discrete GPU. I don’t know. In the current generation of gaming laptops, the MUX switch takes the form of a dedicated microchip placed between the iGPU and dGPU .

For those not familiar with laptop nomenclature, iGPU and dGPU refer to the different graphics processors found in laptops. An iGPU is a graphics processor that is typically located on the same die as the CPU . This is a weak graphics chip that is used for basic tasks such as video streaming, running the OS’s GUI, and other similar tasks. A dGPU (dedicated graphics processor), on the other hand, is a full-fledged graphics chip (installed separately from the CPU) that can perform high-performance tasks such as gaming and video rendering. They also have different power requirements. iGPUs are typically low-power chips, while dGPUs consume more power.

These different GPUs typically coexist within modern gaming laptops and organically switch between each other (more on that later) to provide the best experience for the user. But recently, as the graphics performance of discrete GPUs has improved, iGPUs have started to act as a bottleneck for dGPUs. Modern MUX switches are simply a solution to this unique problem . The question of why this happened can only be answered by looking at historical precedent. This will be discussed in the next section.

A brief history of switchable graphics

Now that we’ve seen what a MUX switch is, we’d like to shed some light on the interesting historical trajectory of this feature. It’s a story like Ouroboros. It has been born and reincarnated many times over the past few decades. The current concept of MUX switches, which manufacturers call “new features,” is essentially outdated.

That being said, if MUX switches are old technology, you’re probably asking yourself why they’re only now making a comeback. This is exactly what we will look at in this section. The point is, like any form of technology, today’s MUX switches are similar to the old ones, but are much more advanced in the way they operate.

The first implementation of a MUX switch was made by Sony in the VAIO SZ-110B , released in April 2006. On the surface, the idea seems quite similar, since laptops were equipped with switches that could be changed to transform the characteristics of the computer. graphics driver. However, unlike today’s MUX switches, the first generation was much more complex to implement.

The problem was that a typical laptop at the time had at least three separate display adapters: one for the LCD, one for the VGA port, and one for DVI/HDMI. This means that if you want the ability to switch between integrated and discrete graphics, you will need multiple add-ons on your motherboard to route signals to and from the GPU. This made the first generation solution of adding a hardware MUX cumbersome and expensive. This solution also required changes to the actual circuitry, requiring users to restart the system every time they switched graphics.

Another problem with this technology in the early days was that most users stuck with the native graphics options that came with their laptops , always choosing to use either the iGPU or dGPU. Non-technical people often have a hard time understanding how this feature works. This created a situation where buyers looking for a laptop almost never bought a laptop with a MUX switch, as it was not only expensive, but also did not offer any special benefits for many people.

Laptop manufacturers realized this shortcoming and over the next few years we saw second-generation switchable graphics come onto the market. This iteration transformed the hardware switch into a software-controlled switch, so there was more work on the software side. So how did they work? Essentially what the manufacturer did was create something called a “display driver interposer,” which is a type of bridge that holds information about both the integrated graphics driver and the dGPU driver. This means you can switch between iGPU and dGPU in about 5-10 seconds by changing your laptop’s display profile without having to restart your system every time you need to switch GPUs.

What is NVIDIA Optimus technology?

Now, with the laptop industry moving towards switchable graphics, Nvidia released its own version in 2010 called ” Optimus “. This implementation was very advanced and virtually resolved every complaint users had with the second generation implementation.

Nvidia Optimus eliminates the need for hardware multiplexers and software switches. How do you ask? Simply put, with Optimus, all visual signals first pass through the iGPU , and then the system driver looks at each running application to decide whether to use the dGPU or the iGPU. This concept has abolished the concept of hardware MUX switches in both software and hardware form, as Optimus has formed an intelligent system that can perform this process on the fly.

As you can see from the diagram above, Optimus allows the computer to decide which graphics solution to use for a particular task . For example, if you’re running something light like Microsoft Word, it switches to the iGPU and turns off the dGPU completely. It also drives the display through the dGPU when you’re doing intensive tasks like gaming.

This simple fix turned out to be revolutionary, as it allowed for a simply designed motherboard with a dedicated GPU. No more extra copper layers or multiplexers that stuck with previous versions. This also means you no longer need to shut down your display to switch graphics drivers. Updates are now almost instantaneous with no delays or stuttering.

This made Nvidia Optimus a solution with few drawbacks at the time . That meant Nvidia’s solution was almost mandatory if laptop manufacturers wanted to include a dedicated GPU in their systems. And that’s exactly what happened. Over the years, Optimus has become a leading choice for manufacturers when it comes to switchable graphics, and it remains the most popular choice today, especially in budget gaming laptops. Almost every laptop with an Nvidia GPU now has some form of Optimus.

Return of the hardware MUX switch

Over time, we learned that Nvidia Optimus was far from perfect. There are certain issues with this implementation that have surfaced over the years. First, Optimus essentially subordinates the dGPU to the iGPU . That is, it always uses the iGPU’s display controller. This limits the laptop’s display capabilities to that of the integrated GPU.

To illustrate this challenge, let’s look at an extreme example. For example, if your laptop has a 3080Ti, but the laptop’s display is powered by an iGPU that only supports a maximum resolution of 720p (6-bit color), the dedicated GPU must be compliant (for Optimus). There is. That standard applies regardless of the display’s capabilities. The iGPU is the weakest part, but it’s like it’s always in charge.

All hyperbole aside, this wasn’t a particular drawback back in 2010, but things have changed now. With the advent of more powerful hardware and new standards like HDR and variable refresh rates, display drivers have reached their breaking point. And in most cases, the point of failure was the iGPU. iGPU display drivers on modern CPUs cannot withstand the stress of new graphics cards, leading to lower FPS output. And for Intel iGPUs, they don’t even support new features like VRR.

The current wave of MUX switches, popularized by the likes of Alienware and Asus, is a reaction to this limitation. These hardware MUX switches are attached to the motherboard itself , allowing the laptop to completely bypass the iGPU and send the signal directly from the discrete GPU to the laptop’s display. And it removes the bottleneck which is the iGPU in the process.

If you’ve been paying close attention to our discussion, you’ve probably noticed that the new wave of MUX switches are similar to older generations of switchable graphics. The current generation MUX switch is a hardware add-on similar to older switches , in the form of a dedicated microchip that resides between the iGPU and dGPU. This is clearly seen in the Asus case. Asus represents the MUX switch as an integrated circuit that connects both the dGPU and the display.

However, the MUX switch implementation is a little more sophisticated. Unlike the physical switches that came with the VAIO SZ-110B, modern MUX switches are controlled by software that can be accessed through the BIOS settings or a companion app that comes with your gaming laptop.

What is Nvidia Advanced Optimus?

Similarly, with Optimus’ limitations in mind, Nvidia released a new version of its technology in April 2020. This is called Advanced Optimus . The idea of ​​Advanced Optimus was to solve both performance and functionality issues at the same time.

So how did Nvidia do it? While the specifics of how Advanced Optimus works hasn’t been made public, Nvidia has revealed the general principles it uses. The company says Advanced Optimus is similar to the old dynamic MUX switch (Gen 1), which allowed laptops to switch between iGPU and dGPU on the fly.

However, what’s different from the old one is how the display controller works. Instead of having two separate circuit lines to connect to the laptop display, Nvidia has created a new “dynamic display switch” that acts as an intermediary between the iGPU and the discrete graphics. Nvidia claims that the iGPU is no longer the limiting factor because it is bypassed thanks to this intermediate chip.

Nvidia claims that this solution not only solves the iGPU bottleneck in terms of performance , but also enables other features such as variable refresh rate . The display signal on laptops that don’t have Advanced Optimus or a dedicated MUX switch goes through the chip’s iGPU, and these GPUs typically don’t support G-Sync or other standards. Again, I highlight it the most because some AMD CPUs, especially high-end ones, come with support for free sync.

Comparing Nvidia Advanced Optimus and Hardware MUX Switches

Because Advanced Optimus is automatic, it has certain advantages over regular MUX switches. That is, it actively switches the graphics output depending on your use case, rather than manually turning it on/off. Similar to older Optimus implementations, measure your workload and decide which GPU to use. What’s more, laptops with Advanced Optimus also don’t require a reboot to switch to discrete graphics. That’s because that work is done in the background by a “dynamic display switch.”

All these features combined make the Advanced Optimus a worthy alternative to hardware MUX switches, and we think it will be a popular option in the gaming world. But that’s the problem, and two years after its release, Advanced Optimus remains largely invisible to the public eye. Nvidia says nearly 50 laptop models from manufacturers including Acer, Dell, and Alienware support this feature. We believe Nvidia’s claims are too optimistic, as we looked at Nanoreview’s list of laptops with MUX switches and found only about 20 laptops with Nvidia Advanced Optimus built-in. And well, it’s disappointing to say the least.

How can I check if my laptop has a MUX switch?

Check the manufacturer’s companion app

MUX switches are an important marketing feature for gaming laptops, but most manufacturers don’t actually include them in their spec sheets. To check if your gaming laptop has a MUX switch, you’ll first need to open up the companion suite it comes with, such as Armory Crate on Asus machines or Alien Command Center from Alienware.

On my MSI GE67HX Raider test laptop at the office, I found a MUX switch under the features window in the MSI Center companion app. The MUX switch is labeled “GPU switch” and can be used in either “hybrid” mode, which uses the iGPU as the primary display driver, or “discrete graphics mode,” which uses the included RTX 3080 Ti as the primary display driver. Provides options to select. driver.

Check MUX switch in BIOS settings

However, some laptop manufacturers do not include the GPU switch toggle in a companion app and hide it in the system’s BIOS settings. This is mostly seen on Dell gaming laptops, as highlighted in the image below.

I have no idea why this is in the BIOS and not a companion app. One reason is that Dell is genuinely happy with the laptop’s performance in iGPU mode and believes that the sacrifices made by turning on dGPU mode (such as lower battery power) aren’t worth the trade-off. It may be. Some claim this is a ploy by Dell to force gamers to buy Alienware series laptops. However, as we found in our research, the MUX switch on Alienware laptops is also located in the BIOS settings, so this claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Search official support pages or online forums

Finally, if you’re not sure if your gaming laptop has a hardware MUX, check out your device’s official support page. Additionally, online forums such as Overclockers.net and Reddit are also useful for finding more information.

However, if you don’t want to go to a random forum, check out this excellent glossary of MUX switches compiled by Nanoreview . This list is comprehensive and will tell you not only whether your laptop has a MUX switch, but also its year of release and basic specifications. Check if your laptop is on the list.

How to turn on or off the MUX switch on a gaming laptop?

The MUX switch on a gaming laptop doesn’t actually function like an “on” or “off” switch, so it doesn’t actually turn it on or off. You can think of a MUX switch as a railroad switch because all it really does is direct the visual signal to a specific path (which could be through either the iGPU driver or the dGPU). I encourage you to imagine.

As mentioned earlier, there is no single way to change the settings of a MUX switch as each manufacturer has their own method. We already talked about how to find the GPU switch on modern laptops in the section above . However, extending this further, almost all companion apps these days come with dedicated options such as GPU mode, GPU switch, hybrid mode, or graphics switcher to enable or disable the MUX switch/Optimus on your laptop. I’m doing it. In that case, you can always open the BIOS settings on your Windows 11/10 laptop and change the settings.

Can I install a Mux switch after purchasing the laptop?

As already mentioned, a MUX switch is a specific hardware chipset installed on the motherboard. This is between the iGPU (processor) and the graphics processor . This means that the MUX switch is not something that can be easily removed or installed at a later stage. This is repeated by some manufacturers, such as Asus, who constantly remind us that the MUX switch is soldered to the motherboard and is not something that can be upgraded by the user.

What are the benefits of MUX switches?

There are several obvious benefits to using MUX switches. The most important benefit and the reason why most users want a laptop with a MUX switch is its performance. Although the level of performance improvement will vary depending on the individual system and its configuration, there is no disputing the fact that there will be some performance improvement. To that end, we conducted a test to see the difference in performance between a gaming laptop’s MUX switch enabled and disabled. Now, let’s find out whether MUX switch can improve the FPS of games.

For example, in our hands-on performance testing, switching to a discrete GPU using a MUX switch shows a 15% FPS increase in some games like DOOM: ETERNAL, compared to just 5% in other triple AAA games. It was found that an improvement was obtained. Games such as control. We also tested a popular graphical stress test known as Furmark, and to our surprise, we didn’t see any noticeable performance improvements.

The performance gains for the MSI GE67HX are relatively low compared to results from other technology reviewers. For example, in a MUX switch comparison, Jarrod’s technology saw an almost 40% performance difference in some FPS games such as Counter-Strike. Some news outlets claim that the performance difference can be up to 50% on certain laptops.

To date, we haven’t yet seen such a huge difference in performance between the laptops, but that may just be due to the specific settings we used for the comparison. We tested all games at the “Ultra” preset at 1440p resolution, and looking at other performance comparisons, it appears that the iGPU proved to be the bottleneck when pushing ultra-high frame rates in older games. So, if you play a lot of CS:GO, you may notice a big difference in performance in “discrete” graphics mode.

Additionally, using your laptop in dGPU mode can unlock certain features that weren’t available in iGPU mode, such as the ability to use Nvidia Shadowplay more frequently . On my MSI laptop, I couldn’t record the screen when in hybrid mode except when inside a video game. But turning on dGPU mode made it possible. This is because “Shadowplay” (used to record video games) uses H.264 decoding on Nvidia’s dGPU and requires a direct connection to the GPU.

Another unexpected benefit I noticed when switching my MSI gaming laptop to discrete graphics was the change in color profiles . When I left the laptop in “hybrid” mode, it had a very washed out look and felt like there was a white smear across the display. We initially thought this was due to an issue with MSI True color, but after investigating, it appears that “True color” works in both modes.

The reasons for this vary, but it may be due to differences in the color reproduction capabilities of the two graphics drivers. That’s obvious when you look at the HDR settings for each mode. The HDR option in display settings is only enabled in discrete mode and is grayed out in hybrid mode. This means you’ll get a more accurate color experience when your laptop’s display runs through the dGPU.

What are the disadvantages of MUX switches?

MUX switches have many benefits, but ultimately they are a double-edged sword. In general, the biggest impact of dGPU mode on gaming laptops is battery life . This makes sense, as Optimus and the modern standard of switchable graphics are the result of a movement to achieve better battery life in high-performance laptops. iGPU-only mode uses less power than dGPU mode because it only turns on when the Optimus/Hybrid mode graphics processor is needed. However, in dGPU mode, the graphics card is always running in the background, so overall power consumption is always higher.

This was evident in the battery tests we conducted on the MSI GE67HX laptop. The test was fairly simple: running a 4K YouTube video at 50% brightness for 20 minutes . We believe that the concept of comparing battery life while gaming is not very meaningful. Because most gamers do not use the game laptop in the battery. In this mode, the battery is greatly disabled.

But you can imagine using a laptop for a casual YouTube session here and there. So what happened to the result? In the case of discrete graphics mode, the MSI laptop consumed almost 1% battery per minute. At the end of the 20 -minute test, the battery was consumed nearly 18% . Naturally, in the hybrid mode, the battery was reduced only by 10% while driving, so much better results were obtained. As a result, the battery life has been improved by almost 50%. This can be important when working on the go.

In addition, the power consumption analysis of the Kiluwat Electric Power Material was performed, but the obtained measurements were interesting. It turned out that the power consumption of the laptop that opened the four Chrome tabs is 95 W in mode only for discrete GPUs. This is a considerable amount of such a simple workload, and is a good example of excessive power consumed by laptops in DGPU mode. In hybrid mode, the same workload power consumption was only 50.6 W.

The result is the same as the battery life test, as the difference in power consumption between the two MDOs is only about 50% . In conclusion, both tests can tell that DGPU mode consumes a lot of extra power, while running simple tasks.

What should I do if there is no GPU switch option on the laptop equipped with a dedicated GPU?

A common question that many users hold is whether something can be done to improve the laptop performance without MUX switches. The answer is yes. There are other ways to bypass IGPU to improve performance. The easiest way to bypass IGPU is to run an external monitor via the display port or the HDMI port, and connect an external monitor to the laptop .

However, before doing this, make sure that the port that runs an external display is supplied by DGPU. If you don’t specifically know which output the GPU supplies power, check the following steps:

1. First, open the ” NVIDIA Control Panel ” in the laptop. The easiest way to open this is to right -click the desktop to find the NVIDIA control panel.

2. Open the app and expand the “3D setting” option on the left sidebar. Next, click ” Surround configuration, Physx “.

3. The configuration window shows where the laptop display is connected, and which is installed in the lower left of the IGPU or DGPU. As you can see in this example, the display is driven by the Disclet GPU -RTX 3080 TI.

Note : To make it work completely, it is necessary to make sure that the laptop screen is not mirrored and is running only in the second screen dedicated mode. If you leave the laptop screen on, it will automatically switch to the IGPU driver.

Do I need to buy a laptop with a MUX switch right now?

Here is another important problem. Whether you need to buy a laptop with a MUX switch. Well, the answer is complicated.

Game laptop MUX switches have some specific benefits for performance and display functions, but are still expensive. JARROD engineers, a reputable hardware critic, stated that the main reasons that major manufacturers, such as ASUS, do not have MUX switches in all models is to increase costs. We have no answer to what the specific cost increase will be. But to guess, we will claim that it is a non -important amount.

Because it was the heart of the question, I wanted to start this section with a focus on cost. Gaming laptops with MUX switches can only be found in the high -quality price range from the middle price range. The cheapest found on the Internet is the DELL G15 5520 (RTX 3050), and the price is ($ 1100). And this del laptop is actually an intruder. The next cheap laptop with the MUX switch is Lenovo Legion 5 with a retail price of about $ 1500. We are creating a dedicated list of the best gaming laptop with MUX switches. Please check the list.

Playing the game with ultra -high FPS, the latest hardware function is required, but if you like the convenience of the game on the included display, and if you can afford it, you can buy a laptop with a MUX switch. Is completely reasonable. . However, for others, MUX switches do not always improve the performance of amazing land. We tested this with a gorgeous laptop equipped with NVIDIA RTX 3080 TI. You can imagine the difference in performance in a setup where the GPU is a bottleneck.

MUX switch: Is it important for game laptops?

This explains everything you want to know about the MUX switch on the gaming lap top. I hope you read this article and enjoy it. The MUX switch, which has multiple life, is a notable product of computing history, and tells you a lot about how technology appears. The MUX switch had an amazing story from the early forms of some Sony laptop hardware gimmicks to the resurrection as a solution to long -term problems with switchable graphics. And now NVIDIA is aware of the problem of Optimus, so I can’t wait to see what is waiting for the MUX switch in the future. So what do you think about the MUX switch? Do you think it is an important feature? Please let us know in the comments below.