Should I Retire This Graphics Card?

jeeg on 09/07/2017 - 18:19

I have an old (but reliable) Asus EAH6850 graphics card which I bought 2010. Have been re-using this card everytime my PC went through an upgrade. My last upgrade was end last year when I upgraded my motherboard to Asus H170M-Plus Skylake but I kept using the card. Main reason in the past of using this card is to run 3 x displays concurrently. Now that the latest motherboard can also drive 3 x displays out of the box (HDMI, DVI, VGA), I am not sure if I should retire this card (or not). I did see that the PC power consumption drop from 100W'ish (idle) to now 37w (idle) and thought maybe retiring the card is the only benefit.

What would u guys do when running multiple displays? Use onboard graphics or use a dedicated card.

Computing

Comments

  • KitchenSink on 09/07/2017 - 18:27
    +1

    I'm for Onboard.

    Unless you're doing something graphical like video editing/photos/gaming/mining, then theres no need for it. Like you said, the onboard can handle 3 inputs and saves on power when idle.

    • KitchenSink on 09/07/2017 - 18:45

      You might as well give it a try for a week and see how it goes. If it struggles then put the card back in. Got nothing to lose

      • jeeg on 09/07/2017 - 19:35

        Yes thats a good idea.

  • scrimshaw on 09/07/2017 - 18:30
    +1

    I run onboard graphics on my laptop (2 additional displays) all the time. It does require more memory resources but not so much that it really bogs down your system. You might be looking at a hundred MB or so in extra memory used, which is a drop in a bucket when you consider most computers now have more than 8G of RAM.

  • jeeg on 09/07/2017 - 18:36

    Yes i have 16GB but the motherboard can only share up to 1GB of ram which is a bummer.

    • scrimshaw on 09/07/2017 - 18:40
      +1

      That's not really a problem. You're not gaming, so it's not as if you require 1GB RAM to run 2d applications.

      • jeeg on 09/07/2017 - 19:34

        that is true.

  • Albie764 on 10/07/2017 - 07:27

    Yes better to go with onboard unless you want to play 3d games run 3d apps etc.

  • Nzkev779 on 10/07/2017 - 08:22

    Yes that card is pretty much worth scrap metal only..hardware goes down in price dramatically.

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