What Is A MUX Switch In Gaming Laptops And Should You Use It?

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Thanks to a dedicated GPU, a good modern gaming laptop can run demanding AAA games at a smooth frame rate. To further enhance the gaming experience, such laptops also come equipped with some of the best tech components, including a high refresh rate display, a powerful multicore processor and an equally capable cooling system. As a result, they are making gaming laptops a cut above the rest, designed to deliver the best performance possible in all scenarios.

However, every gaming laptop is also a 'normal' laptop at the end of the day. A user should be able to perform their daily productivity-related tasks on it even when not connected to a power outlet. Therefore, battery life also becomes an essential factor in such a device. To easily manage the power efficiency on a gaming laptop, features like Nvidia Optimus and AMD Switchable Graphics came into play. But as laptop GPUs became more powerful, these systems began acting as a performance bottleneck while playing games.

Related: Nvidia DLDSR Is About To Make Your PC Games Look Better Than Ever

This is precisely why the MUX switch came into being. Most modern midrange and premium gaming laptops come with a MUX switch installed. It gives users the choice to optimize their laptops to deliver either high battery life or high performance in games, depending on the requirement. In terms of design, the MUX switch is a physical unit soldered onto the laptop's motherboard. It allows users to enable or disable the laptop's integrated GPU manually. However, every time the iGPU is either ON or OFF, a system restart is required. But what exactly happens when iGPU is turned ON/OFF in a gaming laptop?

The Nvidia Optimus and AMD Switchable graphics work by sending the rendered frames