Optiplex 9030 AIO with Discrete Graphics Radeon R7 A265

Hello,

I work for a university and we have come to LOVE the AIO Optiplex units for our general use labs. The AIO form factor is very clean and really frees up a significant amount of space. The new lockable port cover is just icing on the cake!

The recent addition of a discrete graphics option really got us excited and we ordered 20 of them with the Radeon card for one of our labs. However, we have recently discovered that there is no option in the BIOS to only choose to use the discrete graphics card instead of operating in a dynamically switched mode.

The reason we would like to use the discrete card only is that some engineering centric apps like AutoCAD 2015 have issues with switched graphics. Additionally, it is difficult to manage which programs activate the high-performance vs. integrated modes. Also, the Catalyst control center which manages this switching operation is not exactly friendly in a limited privilege environment.

We had expected to see that option in BIOS as it is usually available in the desktop, SFF, and other configurations. Is there a design issue with the AIOs that will prevent the ability to permanently switch to the discrete graphics via BIOS? Or is this something that could be presented to your system engineers for inclusion in a future BIOS revision?

Ideally, we would like to see an NVidia Quadro option in future AIO models, but we were hoping that the R7 discrete card could meet our needs for now.