Gaming Laptop Recommendations?

Hey there,

I just picked up a laptop HP Victus 16.1 GeForce RTX 3050Ti, AMD Ryzen 6000, 16gb, and I noticed something a little weird. It seems to be running on the AMD integrated graphics for everything, but then the main NVIDIA card kicks in whenever I launch a video game. I haven’t been able to change it at all—even if I try to disable the Intel or AMD integrated graphics, it just switches back to the standard display. I read somewhere online that this is actually totally normal and how they're set up from the factory to save battery life. Also, when I plug the laptop into my TV, it shows that the display is being powered by the dedicated GPU. I was wondering if anyone else here has used this specific model and if it's really supposed to work this way? Is this just how all gaming laptops operate, or am I missing something?

Thanks for any help!

Yeah, I guess that's how most of it is set up.

Here’s why the mux Switch actually matters.

Technically, you should be fine using an external screen.

But look, if you don't have a MUX switch? It isn't the end of the world. You can still squeeze out more performance by hooking up an external monitor. The trick is making sure that display output is wired straight to the dedicated GPU instead of running through the Intel or AMD integrated graphics.

And why on earth would I bother with a beefier graphics card if I don't actually need it?

On my Windows 11 Pro, if you head over to
system > Display > Graphics, there's actually an option to manually pick which GPU handles a specific app.
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