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Using iGPU + dGPU, is it worth it?

evo4ever86

evo4ever86

evo4ever86

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Liverpool
Hello all.

Recently I've been wondering whether it's worth using my 9800X3D's iGPU alongside my dGPU (ASTRAL 5080). Are there any case uses for it? Because it seems like a waste disabling the iGPU component of the CPU, I mean what actually happens to the iGPU part of the CPU's silicon when it's been "switched off", does it do anything else or is it just disabled?
 
Aside from some edge cases of using the iGPU for encoding while using the main GPU for another task (not even sure off the top of my head if that is possible on AMD but assume it is) I don't think there are any practical uses for leaving the iGPU enabled.
 
played around with it for a while
connected secondary monitor to igpu, set up windows to offload video playback to it, theoretically would reduce load on main gpu while gaming and watching video on other screen

not worth it, loading two sets of GPU drivers (AMD and Nvidia) offsets any potential gains
 
No issues. Can't do it on my own personal desktop since it lacks an IGP but on a family member's PC (7700X + 3070 Ti), I set Firefox and Discord to use the IGP in Window's graphic settings and everything else on the discrete. No issues there and they had this setup for a couple of years now. Sure it probably doesn't boost performance too much but just allows the 3070 Ti to fully focus on the game.
 
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Orcvader said:
No issues. Can't do it on my own personal desktop since it lacks an IGP but on a family member's PC (7700X + 3070 Ti), I set Firefox and Discord to use the IGP in Window's graphic settings and everything else on the discrete. No issues there and they had this setup for a couple of years now. Sure it probably doesn't boost performance too much but just allows the 3070 Ti to fully focus on the game.
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I might give that a whirl and do a few benchmarks and see what happens lol.
 
I disabled my iGPU for a long time. But with Nvidia drivers being as ropey as they are right now, I've switched it back on, just in case...
 
I've had it disabled. Having it enabled just means more heat and work on the cpu, and cpu bottlenecks can be a real issue in gaming these days.
 
The iGPU also reserves a chunk of RAM(think 512MB) and uses power, this can affect performance depending on how much RAM you have and the CPU power limit. I was going to use the iGPU for Netflix and videos as the dGPU uses ~40W, but never tried it.
 
FredFlint said:
The iGPU also reserves a chunk of RAM(think 512MB) and uses power, this can affect performance depending on how much RAM you have and the CPU power limit. I was going to use the iGPU for Netflix and videos as the dGPU uses ~40W, but never tried it.
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Yeah I think it's just power usage and heat mainly but would probably need some allocated RAM... although for a gaming system, if you can't spare 512MB of RAM you need to buy more RAM anyway :P

There used to be more of a point, when Intel quicksync was a comparitively good and efficient encoder/decoder vs using GPU power (but now all brand cards have separate media encoding sections on die), or on laptops (nVidia Optimus I think it was, maybe an AMD equivilent) where it could completely power down the GPU when not required.

For AM4, I obviously don't have one, but I think for AM5 I'd disable it... I have no idea on current Intel offerings and what the pros/cons there might be.
 
It's a God send it you want to run 3 monitors at 240hz and high resolution. I can't do this using display port on my 4090 but can using my 7800X3D.
 
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Bidley said:
This is the sticking point. I think it depends on your motherboard. For this reason I leave mine enabled, as I see no practical reason to disable it.
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It's not massively difficult to reset the bios settings to defaults though. Infact many do it on its own if it fails to post twice.

Ill admit some cmos batteries are in awkward spots, but I think generally boards have a jumper now for quick reset actions.
 
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Rawr said:
It's not massively difficult to reset the bios settings to defaults though. Infact many do it on its own if it fails to post twice.

Ill admit some cmos batteries are in awkward spots, but I think generally boards have a jumper now for quick reset actions.
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I think it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

I could equally just leave things as they are, as I'm not having issues with my IGPU enabled :)
 
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