help with acer aspire 5 (geforce mx 250)

LLB

HELLO, JUST BOUGHT ACER ASPIRE 5 , I7, 8GB RAM 256GB SSD+ 1TB HDD, AND As stated GeForce MX250 
so I downloaded GPU-Z to check is it MX250 (25W) >GPU id =1D13 , OR MX250 (10W) WITH > GPU ID=1D52, BUT I WAS SHOCKED THAT IT WAS INTEL UHD GRAPHICS THEN I pressed on it and there was another option which is geforce MX250, i was confused does the laptop have 2 graphic cards installed?? 
But more important when i press on mx250 the GPU ID ISN'T 1D13  AND NOT EVEN 1D52 , THE GPU ID IS GP108  !!! SO WHICH VERSION I GOT 10W OR 25W ???   OR IS IT SOMETHING ELSE!?

CHECK THE PHOTOS I POSTED

aphanic

That's an easy question to answer, yes, you have 2 graphic cards. Laptops nowadays have one integrated in the same die as the processor, that's your Intel UHD Graphics 620 which is way less powerful than dedicated graphics cards but it's more than enough for most things you may want to do with the laptop so it's the one that gets used most of the time.

The NVIDIA card is the dedicated one, and that GP108 you see there is the chip in which it's based on which is a Pascal based chip, the same as in the GT 1030 in the desktop space if I'm not mistaken; but you have its ID there as well, in the "Device ID" field, you can see it's the 25w powered one, which isn't saying much per se because it could be throttled and never achieve its full potential.

In any case, being an entry level card, don't have many expectations from it

LLB

aphanic 

Wow, thanks for fast response
but,  

1.  can you explain more what you mean it could be throttled,
2.  your sure its 25w and it has another graphic card, and has ssd, AND i7 10 gen PROCESSOR, why shouldn't I have expectations !                                                                                                                   do you mean it'll have lagging issues ?

aphanic

Nope, no lagging at all, from what I could see in those specs it has an SSD which is where I suppose the OS is installed so everything should be fast.

As for throttling I meant because of thermals, for example when reaching a certain temperature if the cooling solution (pipes, heatsink, fan) is not able to keep things cool enough the processor and GPU can run at lower frequencies to avoid damage to the parts. It happens to all machines, specially thin and light laptops because there's not much space for a great amount of metal to cool the things down, but performance wise you can expect it to be great.

I hace an A515-54G with similar specs to yours and I'm running VMs and all on it even on battery power with no noticeable lag.

Another cause of throttling is the current, when the regulators inside can't cope with the amount of current the processor demands (for example) they'll limit its performance. Or simple artificially, the manufacturer could have put a 25w version of the card but cap it at 70º C so it won't ever get past that temperature, it'll slow down not to exceed that limit.

Don't worry about it, just enjoy your new laptop

Worry only if you run into trouble because of something, like the keyboard not working or the screen turning black, otherwise it's time to enjoy the new purchase.

LLB

aphanic said:

Nope, no lagging at all, from what I could see in those specs it has an SSD which is where I suppose the OS is installed so everything should be fast.

As for throttling I meant because of thermals, for example when reaching a certain temperature if the cooling solution (pipes, heatsink, fan) is not able to keep things cool enough the processor and GPU can run at lower frequencies to avoid damage to the parts. It happens to all machines, specially thin and light laptops because there's not much space for a great amount of metal to cool the things down, but performance wise you can expect it to be great.

I hace an A515-54G with similar specs to yours and I'm running VMs and all on it even on battery power with no noticeable lag.

Another cause of throttling is the current, when the regulators inside can't cope with the amount of current the processor demands (for example) they'll limit its performance. Or simple artificially, the manufacturer could have put a 25w version of the card but cap it at 70º C so it won't ever get past that temperature, it'll slow down not to exceed that limit.

Don't worry about it, just enjoy your new laptop

Worry only if you run into trouble because of something, like the keyboard not working or the screen turning black, otherwise it's time to enjoy the new purchase.

TRULY thank you, I don't have any experience with laptops or pcs, i just wanted to buy laptop for studying but I thought this one has good specs and will run GAMES BY THE way can it run Forza horizon , motorsport ?
another thing since it have 2 graphics card, is it like there is a primary and secondary card ? if so how do i know which one i primary?

and please tell me facts even if if its bad, i mean i need to know the truth eventhough if its ugly, the truth shall set you free  

aphanic

I wouldn't know about games, but if you input "MX250 + Name of the game" in YouTube you may be able to see some videos on what to expect, I'm sure there are plenty of testers already with laptops that have that card.

As for primary and secondary cards yes, the integrated one, the Intel one, is the primary card. Mostly because of its lower power consumption and it's used for everything almost, even watching videos, because it's efficient at that and doesn't consume much. The MX250, even being an entry-level card, is more powerful so it is only used for games for example, or compute tasks that can benefit from it. Maybe some things I don't know about too, but the one that's going to be doing most of the work is the Intel one.

Unless all you do is gaming in the laptop haha, then the MX250 would be the one doing the work.

LLB

aphanic said:

I wouldn't know about games, but if you input "MX250 + Name of the game" in YouTube you may be able to see some videos on what to expect, I'm sure there are plenty of testers already with laptops that have that card.

As for primary and secondary cards yes, the integrated one, the Intel one, is the primary card. Mostly because of its lower power consumption and it's used for everything almost, even watching videos, because it's efficient at that and doesn't consume much. The MX250, even being an entry-level card, is more powerful so it is only used for games for example, or compute tasks that can benefit from it. Maybe some things I don't know about too, but the one that's going to be doing most of the work is the Intel one.

Unless all you do is gaming in the laptop haha, then the MX250 would be the one doing the work.

ok , so what I understood from your words is 
a_ the way I am using the laptop will determine which card is primary ?   because  >> that means  I get to chose which card is primary !


and since you mentioned that intel is integrated card, then I guess it has its own processor ! 
b_Does that mean that this lapptop has two processors?? 

LLB

aphanic said:

I wouldn't know about games, but if you input "MX250 + Name of the game" in YouTube you may be able to see some videos on what to expect, I'm sure there are plenty of testers already with laptops that have that card.

As for primary and secondary cards yes, the integrated one, the Intel one, is the primary card. Mostly because of its lower power consumption and it's used for everything almost, even watching videos, because it's efficient at that and doesn't consume much. The MX250, even being an entry-level card, is more powerful so it is only used for games for example, or compute tasks that can benefit from it. Maybe some things I don't know about too, but the one that's going to be doing most of the work is the Intel one.

Unless all you do is gaming in the laptop haha, then the MX250 would be the one doing the work.

ok , so are you saying that primary card is intel cause what I understood from your words is 
a_ how I use the laptop will determine which card is primary  >> that means I get to chose which card is primary ! but there is an icon for NVIDIA card says (Inactive) MX250, also i see geforce MX250 has 0% in task manager until I tried playing a game called played runescape and both cards were active 

b_ I have information but not sure about it which is integrated cards comes with processors , since you mentioned that intel is integrated card 

does that mean that there are 2 processors in the laptop or there is 1 processor which is attached with the intel card ?

aphanic

The "primary" as in "the one that is used for most of the things" is the one that comes integrated in the processor itself. In this case your Intel UHD Graphics. That's something you can't change, that's just how it is.

Now, you can choose to run programs using the other graphics card, the MX250. It happens automatically most of the time, specially for games because Windows or whatever it is understands that the program needs to be ran using the higher powered graphics card. That's why you see that inactive thing of your MX250, it will be like that most of the time.

But the laptop has only 1 CPU, it's one processor that has a graphics card attached to it as well, if that explains it better. The MX250 is an extra graphics card, think that there are many laptops out there that don't have any dedicated graphics card at all, they just have the one that is integrated in the processor and that's it.

In those, games and everything only use the low powered one because there's nothing else to be used, but yours isn't one of them. Yours has the integrated one, and a dedicated MX250.