cobra5000 :
Why use an APU, with discrete graphics? Especially at this price.
Integrated graphics serves the purpose of reducing power consumption when you are not gaming, by letting the discrete graphics shutdown to save power. if a gaming laptop doesn't have any integrated graphics, that high end GPU will be on all the time, though downclocked and at a low voltage.
So the benefit is power savings. I'm not sure of the benefit of the increased GPU performance of the APU, perhaps the discrete GPU doesn't have to kick in, in so many situations, the APU can handle heavier duty graphics tasks before needing to fire up the big GPU. Also it's in the Richland APU design so there is no choice in the power of the GPU of the APU if you want AMD's fastest mobile CPU and some sort of integrated graphics as well without having a separate 3rd party integrated graphics chip taking up space on the motherboard.
I do wish AMD would make 45W mobile APUs so the clocks go up more.