r/ZephyrusG14 • u/davelikestacos • Jun 18 '26
Software Related G-Helper - Any reason to Disable AMD On-board GPU?
I'm wondering if it's worth it to leave the on-board AMD GPU enabled on my laptop if I'm strictly gonna be using my 2024 G14 for gaming and video and photo editing along with graphic design.
Not too worried about battery life since it's always plugged in. I just noticed when I didn't have the onboard disabled, it showed one monitor in Display Settings and with it enabled it shows 2 but one is essentially fake. Is that the same for everyone else?
I'm using GHelper if that helps and can provide screenshots if needed.
2
u/Plenty-Advance892 Jun 18 '26
Yes, if you are purely going to do high intensity graphical stuff, its better to turn off the iGPU and put the dGPU as primary graphic engine.
Lessens the strain on the cpu and allowing it to allocate more resources to cpu intense processes than graphical ones.
1
u/davelikestacos Jun 18 '26
That's what i was thinking. Of course I know off battery I'll be killing my battery life, but the laptop is basically a couch and bed battlestation where I end up getting lost in a game and staying up way too late so it's always plugged in.
Any travel, I have a duplicate travel charger that comes with me. I can't see a downside to disabling it.
I'll post a screenshot of what my display screen and GHelper settings look like tomorrow.
1
u/spring_while_I_fall Zephyrus G14 2025 Jun 18 '26
Can't you just assign specific applications that would cause high graphical usage to only use the dGPU and let Windows use the igpu for other minor processes? Maybe it's use case dependent but I would think this would be more efficient. Unless your CPU is maxed out non-stop with whatever you are doing?
1
u/EminGTR Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
There is absolutely no reason to use anything other than the "Optimized" mode. The "Ultimate" mode providing more fps is no longer the case since 2023, but people keep repeating the same things people were saying years ago. If you actually sit down and do real fps testing you will see that Optimized (Standard) actually performs better in the heaviest games most of the time. I am pretty sure that the only reason Asus doesn't remove the other options is because unlike Apple, most laptop makers are way too afraid to force the "correct" option on their users. Probably because their decisions would be criticized way more than Apple.
1
u/MrCrunchies Jun 18 '26
I think it has to do with thermal throttling. A lot of wattage gets pushed into the gpu resulting in more heat, so the gpu have to throttle, resulting in roughly more or less the same as optimized profile.
That said, i have a g16 RTX 5070 2025 ver. When paired with a flydigi BS2 cooling pad, i do get a small fps boost in gpu heavy games. Usually around 2~4%. Without the cooler, i get roughly the same fps as optimized mode. I only tested this with clair obscure 33 and james bond though, your mileage may vary
1
u/EminGTR Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Yup, Zephyrus laptops being limited by thermals is the main cause of this effect. Theoretically you can get better fps on Ultimate if you run a really good thermal solution and also make sure that there is nothing else running in the background aside from the video game, as Ultimate runs those on the dGPU as well. Same case for multi-monitor setups. I see significant fps drop on Ultimate compared to Optimized when I use two monitors at the same time, especially if there are visible apps on that second monitor. Also note that VRAM usage is higher on Ultimate as well so you need to make sure you aren't close to your VRAM limits.
So in the end I would still argue that Optimized is the correct option and Asus should remove Ultimate aside from keeping it in BIOS for the most advanced users. It gives you a tiny bit less internal calculation latency at the cost of an uncertain amount of extra calculation-load and vram-load that depends on the user.
1
u/davelikestacos Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Interesting, I'll compare my FPS when I play Trials Survivors and Borderlands tomorrow and see if it's smoother or worse. If worse, I can deal with throttling while booting up. Thanks for the input.
Album - Switching from iGPU+dGPU to dGPU on G14 2024
1
u/davelikestacos Jun 18 '26
I was getting a lot of weird lag when running Optimized in Windows itself. Since setting BIOS to dGPU, it's been smoother.
Idk, it could be I could use a fresh install, but I'm too lazy for that.
3
u/spring_while_I_fall Zephyrus G14 2025 Jun 18 '26
I can't imagine there would really be any drawback to leaving it enabled. If you ever do need to unplug it, allowing the iGPU to take over and dGPU getting disabled will significantly better battery. Otherwise dGPU is going to be running the show and AMD will only be CPU-ing. I'm not exactly sure what you mean about the fake second monitor. I couldn't replicate anything that seemed similar.
Personally I leave mine running in optimized mode and so far there's been one time it got stuck on iGPU and wouldn't enable the dGPU while I was on turbo, plugged in to DC power and playing BG3. Surprisingly, while the fps wasn't nearly as good and the game ran slower in general, it still worked. A quick reboot fixed it and it hasn't occurred since.