Legit Reviews

When a graphics card in placed in a computer with on-board graphics, what happens to the on-board graphics? Is it deactivated completely? Does it still function, but is ignored?

Thanks.

It depends on the mobo or bios sometimes. Usually you disable the onboard in the bios manually. Leaving it on can cause conflicts and degraded performance.

Well I have only ever seen the mobo disable. Never had to do it my self. And, unless the reason for a graphic card is cause the mobo's one doesn't work anymore, it should still work fine, just needs turning back on if you need to.

Neptune24

Most of the newer motherboards allow the onboard and pciexpress graphic card to be enabled at the same time.
But if you are not using it I recommend disabling it in the bios to free up some ram and avoid conflicts.

Thanks for the replies. One more question: How do you know if you're having conflicts? Is it apparent on the display?

Easiest way to tell is that there is no display, and also if it looks like it isn't quite right, or even if you have to do something like unplug and then plug the monitor back in rather than it just being there then you have conflicion

Neptune24

Do you know model of your motherboard? If it has hybrid SLI or crossfire, then you can make it work together with your discrete graphic card so better performance for free