Manual Hybrid Power - removing the 2nd GPU when not in use

MoJo · Post by **MoJo** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 3:58 pm

I occasionally need to have a fast graphics card but could live with on-board most of the time. ATI does Hybrid Power where the high end GPU is turned off when no tin use, but only for laptops. They seem to have decided not to do it on the desktop

Has anyone got any experience of installing a discreet card only when they need it? Basically you use the on-board graphics only most of the time, and then just fit the card when needed.

Most BIOSs allow you to set the on-board graphics as the primary one and Hybrid Crossfire takes care of the rest. I wonder if there are going to be driver issues though... Anyone got any practical experience?

rhys j · Post by **rhys j** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 1:55 pm

I've thought before that this would be a good idea, but I don't see how it's possible with current hardware, since the physical output port is different for the onboard graphics and the VGA card output.

Latest cards do automatically underclock themselves massively, to save on power in 2D mode.

You could try having 2 cables going to your monitor and disabling the relevant display adaptor in Device Manager.

MoJo · Post by **MoJo** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 4:15 pm

Thanks for the ideas. I did try disabling one but it doesn't seem to save much power on the 78x0 boards

You can get Hybrid SLI which is basically running on the on-board graphics most of the time and then doing SLI with the graphics card when needed, but again it doesn't seem to save much power.