Is it possible to turn off a dedicated gpu to use onboard?

[Surutcra]

Lately I have been trying to reduce power consumption on my desktop build stated in my sig. To cut to the chase I want to know if there is any way to disable one of my pci-e slots in the bios. Namely my pci-e slot holding my hd4850. I have onboard graphics aswell and many times there is no need for the 4850. Don't get me wrong I use the 4850 to its fullest on a weekly basis but not all the time. I want to disable my 4850 in order to switch to onboard graphics without physically removing th ehd4850, possible?

 

[secretanchitman]

i think you can set the bios to boot off of the onboard graphics instead of the pci-e slot.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
i think you can set the bios to boot off of the onboard graphics instead of the pci-e slot.

Any graphics card that you plug in will be powered.

 

[Surutcra]

Darn, thats what I figured. Wasn't AMD supposed to release a chipset that saved power by turning off the graphics card to use integrated? Whatever happen to that?

 

[TemjinGold]

Originally posted by: Surutcra
Darn, thats what I figured. Wasn't AMD supposed to release a chipset that saved power by turning off the graphics card to use integrated? Whatever happen to that?

But you have an INTEL rig so why would that matter?

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Surutcra
Darn, thats what I figured. Wasn't AMD supposed to release a chipset that saved power by turning off the graphics card to use integrated? Whatever happen to that?

It's really more of a laptop technology for both nvidia and ati.
ATI only support low end cards on the desktop platform for the technology (aka, worthless).
Nvidia only supported 8 series motherboards on the AMD platform and Geforce 9800GTX and above cards. Then they basically dropped support for it.

 

[Surutcra]

Originally posted by: TemjinGold

Originally posted by: Surutcra
Darn, thats what I figured. Wasn't AMD supposed to release a chipset that saved power by turning off the graphics card to use integrated? Whatever happen to that?

But you have an INTEL rig so why would that matter?

Yeah I realize there is no way to do it with my build now. Just wondering if this technology will be available in the future. If amd DID have this then I would be planning an amd build but it doesn't look like it.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: Surutcra

Originally posted by: TemjinGold

Originally posted by: Surutcra
Darn, thats what I figured. Wasn't AMD supposed to release a chipset that saved power by turning off the graphics card to use integrated? Whatever happen to that?

But you have an INTEL rig so why would that matter?

Yeah I realize there is no way to do it with my build now. Just wondering if this technology will be available in the future. If amd DID have this then I would be planning an amd build but it doesn't look like it.

I am hoping mobos equipped with Lucid hydra chip can do this. (ie, allow quad-fire for 3d....but then switch to onboard graphics for 2d web surfing).

 

[netxzero64]

Originally posted by: Surutcra
Lately I have been trying to reduce power consumption on my desktop build stated in my sig. To cut to the chase I want to know if there is any way to disable one of my pci-e slots in the bios. Namely my pci-e slot holding my hd4850. I have onboard graphics aswell and many times there is no need for the 4850. Don't get me wrong I use the 4850 to its fullest on a weekly basis but not all the time. I want to disable my 4850 in order to switch to onboard graphics without physically removing th ehd4850, possible?

you could either remove your video card because you're not using it and just use your onboard graphics... or you can disable your onboard graphics on bios... but I think that would be unnecessary because once you have put on a video card the onboard graphics will disable automatically

 

[nitromullet]

NVIDIA did have Hybrid SLI, but I haven't heard much about it lately.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=3193

Not sure why this tech didn't take off. Seemed like a really good idea.