Should I disable on-board video?

[crazyray]

I have a P III 1 ghz system with an all-in-one mobo that will be used for net surfing, office work, and playing MP3's. There is on-board video, audio, and NIC. I happen to have a 8 MB PCI video card sitting around. Will I get any performance benefit from using the PCI video card and disabling the onboard video?

[R_1_Oh_Seven]

onboard is sometimes better than pci graphics, keep what you have unless youw ant to run dual monitor support or something. If the graphics are by two different companies they could possibly conflict. If ur pc works fine now keep it how it is.

[RedFury]

You may notice an increase in performance depending on the quality of the onboard video. I've got an IBM with a 2mb onboard video chip ( ati ) and it runs much faster/smoother with my Voodoo 3 PCI.

Disable the onboard in your BIOS, install the PCI card and see for yourself. It certainly isn't going to hurt anything. If you have a problem with the PCI card, just pull it out, and turn the onboard back on.

[John Prophet]

I think you will see an increase. No matter if the pci card is better or not, by disabling the onboard you are freeing up quite a bit of cpu power.

[R_1_Oh_Seven]

goo point, these ultimate members sure are smart

[Martoch]

I agree with JP...be sure to disable any video shadowing or enhanced video features in the BIOS as well, as they tend to suck up a lot of cpu/ram resources and generally show no performance increase.

[Sixpac_XP]

Totally use the Pci Video card since it has its own onboard memory, cpu and by passes the CPU bus using the PCI bus.

[butch81385]

yes, i suggest using anything but onboard, unless your only other option is something tiny and your onboard is good (hehe... i cant believe i just said good onboard.....)