gfxCardStatus Allows You To Manually Switch Your 2010 MacBook Pro’s GPUs
The latest MacBook Pros’ ability to seamlessly switch between integrated Intel graphics and their discrete NVIDIA GPUs is a wonderful feature, capable of saving hours of battery by only employing the more powerful and power-hungry card when an application really needs it.
The problem is, there’s a lot of poorly programmed applications out there that trigger the discrete GPU when Intel’s integrated graphics should suffice. Until these applications are updated, it can be maddening to watch your laptop suck up hours of battery life because it’s treating Tweetie like its Crysis.
gfxCardStatus is a neat open-source menu bar application that allows you to control which graphics card your 2010 MacBook Pro is using at any given time. For the most part, you’ll want to leave it alone and let OS X juggle GPUs, but if you happen to notice your text editor triggering a discrete GPU switch, gfxCardStatus will help you rein it back in.
It’s free to download, so if you have a 2010 MacBook Pro, grab it now.
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[via Boy Genius Report]
John Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him ![Read "Is This USB Vibrator The New iPod? [Interview]"](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/crave1-300x250.jpg "Read \"Is This USB Vibrator The New iPod? [Interview]\"")
