Onboard graphic card simultaneous with PCI Express graphic card

[jenssen]

I want to build a new PC and I am looking for a ASRock board where I can use the onboard graphic card simultaneous with a PCI Express card (Quadro FX580). I want to use the PCI Express card for normal desktop usage and the onboard card for presenting the desktop to a TV.

Somewhere I read that this should be possible with Z68 chipset, but I already know that not all motherboards with this chipset supports this feature. I want to know if there are ASRock motherboards which supports this, I am currently looking at the newer chipset, the Z77. I can nowhere find if this is possibe with ASRock boards, for example the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 and Asrock Z77 Extreme6.

What I found in the manual from the Z77 Extreme6 board (ftp://europe.asrock.com/manual/Z77%20Extreme6.pdf) is the following two settings, which does not clarify for me if this is possible or not.

--
Primary Graphics Adapter
This allows you to select [Onboard], [PCI] or [PCI Express] as the boot
graphic adapter priority. The default value is [PCI Express].
--
IGPU Multi-Moniter
This allows you to enable or disable IGPU Multi-Moniter. The default value
is [Enabled]. If you wish to install a PCI Express card under Windows® XP
/ VistaTM OS, please disable this option.
--

Besides the function above, I would like to have 4x SATA600GB/S, 32GB RAM, USB3.0.

Hope someone can help/clarify some things.

Thanks in advance,

Regards Jenssen

[parsec]

You cannot use the onboard graphics and add on graphics cards separately in any PC. The feature you are thinking of is Virtu, which uses the Virtu software to use the onboard graphics together/combined with a graphics card, and switches between them depending on the usage of the graphics system.

There is no way now to route something to one graphics chip, and another to a different graphics chip on a PC. That would be a nice feature, but does not exist in any PC at this time.

[Mustash]

Hi Parsec,

I'm preparing to set up my new ASRock FMa85x Extreme6 w/ A10 5800K 2 X 4 G Sniper 1866

I bought a Sapphire HD 5450 1G DDR3 capable of lite gaming to test out another board.

The ASRock shipped with Lucids VirtuMVP.

I'm wondering if I would get a gain in performance with this combination or should I just stick with onboard.

I'm also wondering if I can use HDMI v. DVI output as depicted on the Lucid site.


Lucid didn't address AMD APU's on their site.

Thanks!!!

[Kornivsky]

Of course you will get performance! You will never get anything with " onboard ". You can use HDMI or DVI,if it has input in your gpu.

[Mustash]

ASRock recommends the HD 7000 series. I have an HD 5000 series card w/1Gig
The maximum shared memory w/the onboard is 2 Gigs....I'm just still wondering...Not that it makes any difference 'cause I cant even get Win7 to install.

[parsec]

Hi Parsec,

I'm preparing to set up my new ASRock FMa85x Extreme6 w/ A10 5800K 2 X 4 G Sniper 1866

I bought a Sapphire HD 5450 1G DDR3 capable of lite gaming to test out another board.

The ASRock shipped with Lucids VirtuMVP.

I'm wondering if I would get a gain in performance with this combination or should I just stick with onboard.

I'm also wondering if I can use HDMI v. DVI output as depicted on the Lucid site.


Lucid didn't address AMD APU's on their site.

Thanks!!!

Lucid Virtu is not compatible with all video cards AFAIK. The main thing is does is switch between the graphics depending on the load, using the card for gaming and the onboard for simple things. Most people feel that Virtu is buggy and does not work with some games at all. The amount of added performance will be small, but you'll only know unless you try it.

[Chozo4]

I do have a question to add to this in a similar fashion. Would there be any way to use both not for output per-say but rather to run Folding@Home or other computing project using the on-board chip instead?

Rather disappointing to see it not possible on most boards thus far save only for switched usage through Virtu.

[parsec]

No, can't do that either, mainly due to a hardware limitation, the PCIe architecture on mother boards. Not that it is wrong or poorly designed, but simply because there is only one PCIe buss system, with limited switching options. The switching options are controlled by software, but still limited by where signals can be routed physically.

If there were multiple buss connections, or switching options in the buss, video processing devices (cards, chips, on-board CPU) could be isolated and connected to other devices and have software control of their operation. Since we don't have that capability, video cards in SLI or Cross Fire must be physically connected to each other in order to be combined for use, for example.

Lucid is a limited, partial solution to that in software, but it's a difficult thing to achieve, given the hardware limitations, which is why Lucid has been less than perfect in actual use.

You mentioned "most boards", are you aware of any that can do what you asked about?

[Chozo4]

No, can't do that either, mainly due to a hardware limitation, the PCIe architecture on mother boards. Not that it is wrong or poorly designed, but simply because there is only one PCIe buss system, with limited switching options. The switching options are controlled by software, but still limited by where signals can be routed physically.

If there were multiple buss connections, or switching options in the buss, video processing devices (cards, chips, on-board CPU) could be isolated and connected to other devices and have software control of their operation. Since we don't have that capability, video cards in SLI or Cross Fire must be physically connected to each other in order to be combined for use, for example.

Lucid is a limited, partial solution to that in software, but it's a difficult thing to achieve, given the hardware limitations, which is why Lucid has been less than perfect in actual use.

You mentioned "most boards", are you aware of any that can do what you asked about?

It was wrong of me to assume most as I was under the assumption that many boards inherently supported the feature through some limited fashion. Having moved from a board that natively supported both AGP/PCI-e together I thought it was possible with PCI-E normally without debunking my own false belief considering so many PCI-E lanes in many boards. However, here are a few links with both functioning through the Hybrid-SLI feature - two boards and two articles as examples.

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-SH2
ASRock K10N78M

The Rebirth of Multi-GPU Graphics
Hybrid-Crossfire : AMD's New 780G Chipset Has Powerful GPU

[parsec]

The examples you gave are combining the on board graphics chips with a discrete video card, which is great. But how do you use them separately, for individual tasks,which was the original question. You can't AFAIK.

The feature or option you mention is not common or likely popular for most users. It's also more work or difficult, or both, and costs money. Add that up, and we don't get it.


There are a few boards that have add on PCIe chips, and a switching chip, but how much you can re-purpose anything connected to them, I don't know.

Another issue is most of the current Intel boards don't have that many PCIe lanes, compared to say the earlier X58 boards, or the new X79 boards. That can be seen in how many PCIe x 16 slots the current Intel boards have, one at most, and in SLI, they become two PCIe x 8 slots. AMD boards I know very little about.