Question on video card capability

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Snooble

Gawd
Joined
Mar 19, 2004
Messages
865
Howdy all,

A while ago I read that either NVidia or ATi would allow the onboard video to act as a extra card for co-processing or whatnot, I can't exactly remember.

Was it ATi or NVidia, and which motherboards allowed this?

Oh, is there any reviews of it anywhere? I can't seem to find any :(
 
nVidia, and it was limited to the 8xxx/9xxx series for 'power saving'. (with 9300/9400mGPU)

The gt200 chips have idle clocks, so this idea was no longer needed.

ATi had idle clocks with the 4000 series, so it was not really needed.
 
both vendors have this feature available on production hardware:

- nVidia allows Hybrid SLI with GeForce IGPs (namely the 8000 and 9000 series IGPs and a few of the 700 series chipsets) and GeForce 8000, 9000, or GTX series graphics cards

- ATi allows Hybrid Graphics with AMD 790GX series chipsets and what looks like HD 2000 series or newer


so you'd need a motherboard with a supported chipset and graphics adapter from the vendor
as far as the performance improvement, generally not worth the expense (nVidia was showing decent gains with the 8400GS/8500GT and Hybrid SLI, but consider what cards we're talking about), although if you had a 9800GX2 or GTX 285 and wanted to run three monitors or a single monitor and cycle down the power consumption, it does alright (although most people who buy something like a 9800GX2 or GTX 285 don't want an IGP mainboard, because the NB runs warmer)

the same is more or less true for ATi, the performance gains aren't usually worth the extra price of the board, and the power savings are nice, but if you're building an enthusiast system, power savings are really near the bottom of the list

shaw:
"idle clocks" -> what?
GPU drivers have pushed reduced clocks for 2D operation for the better part of a decade, its nothing at all new for GT200 or R700 based processors, although in the case of GT200, and to a lesser degree R700, shader units can be disabled when not in use, which does reduce power consumption
although it still doesn't approach the savings possible by entirely disabling the board
 
Thats what it was...hybrid SLI.

I already have a XFX GeForce 280GTX I want to use for a system, but I plan on going AMD and there just aren't any AMD chipsets with NVidia GPU's around...sigh

Guess I'll keep trrying to find a swap
 
Snooble said:
Thats what it was...hybrid SLI.

I already have a XFX GeForce 280GTX I want to use for a system, but I plan on going AMD and there just aren't any AMD chipsets with NVidia GPU's around...sigh

Guess I'll keep trrying to find a swap
Click to expand...

the last nVidia chipset for the AMD platform was (iirc) the nForce 600 series/Pro 3000 series, neither of which is gonna give you AM3 or similar - or Hybrid SLI

honestly I'd just go with your GTX 280 and whatever CPU you want, as the GT200 will be very power friendly when not gaming
 
This whole technology isn't here yet, mostly because of the state of compilers for these chipsets. It's all marketing gibberish right now.
 
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