Graphics card power

the21robot · July 11, 2013

Hi I was wondering if I had integrated graphics and a dedicated card, will it be better than just having the dedicated card

HirgaLTTki · July 11, 2013

Yes

the21robot · July 11, 2013

Yes

yes?

MdX MaxX · July 11, 2013

Will they work together? No.

But you can, say, connect one monitor to the dedicated and another to the integrated. That way your second monitor doesn't steal GPU power when gaming.

Or, if your motherboard supports Virtu, you can allow switching between integrated and dedicated for power savings. Virtu is kind of terrible software, though.

If you're talking AMD, there are some dedicated cards that can work together with an APU in a "hybrid crossfire" mode, but they're so low-end that they're not worth buying.

IMO the best reason to have both is to have a backup if your dedicated GPU becomes problematic.

iAsuno · July 11, 2013

yes indeed. well, if the card happens to be a 7 year old card and compare it to the latest integrated graphics then that may not be the case. but most of the time, yes.

obsidian1200 · July 11, 2013

Depends on what you mean by "better". Gameplay wise, on the Intel HD Graphics side of things, it won't make a huge difference. However, if you're transcoding video, Intel Quick Sync will make a huge difference in conversion times. For AMD's APUs, this also depends on whether or not you have a compatible card to "crossfire" with the integrated graphics. You will get some boosts in video transcoding as well, but from the benchmarks I've seen, not as big of an improvement as IQS.