Can I use onboard graphics and dedicated graphics card at the same time?

[aceO07]

I have an ASUS P5K-VM motherboard with onboard graphics, which I'm using now. It's a Intel GMA 3100 chipset. I want to get an extra graphics card so I can do dual monitor. 1 LCD monitor and 1 projector.

Can I plop in a new graphics card and use onboard graphics vga port for projector and dedicated video card for monitor? I am aware that a good number of cards have 2 ports on them now.

What's a good graphics card that's under $80-$100 with good IQ (for 1600x1200 res), dvi port and additional dvi/vga port, good driver support in Linux and Windows and not noisy and will fix into a micro case. Also supports dual monitor, though that should be a given. I don't really play games, but the ability to would be nice.

 

[krnmastersgt]

My 8600 GT XXX can pretty do everything that you just listed well but the best deal I could scrounge up on newegg would be http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814161178
quite frankly in retrospect I should have gotten this instead

 

[aceO07]

Thanks for the suggestion.

It seems pretty good, I'll look into it. Any other suggestions?

 

[magreen]

You're mixing up a) dual monitor using a discrete graphics card for one monitor plus the onboard video for the other monitor, with b) dual monitor where one discrete video card drives two monitors with its two video outputs.

Both are possibilities, but possibility a) does not require a discrete card with dual monitor capability. If you do go with possibility b) and buy a discrete card with dual monitor capability, you could actually run three monitors -- two off your video card and one off the integrated video.