Onboard vs 8800GT when not gaming.

Kesava

Kesava

Active Member
I have an 8800GT, but I am not gaming on my PC at the moment and just bought a new motherboard with onboard graphics (Integrated Intel GMA X4500 graphics).

So I am wondering if any programs like Photoshop and so on actually benefit from having a decent graphics card in the computer. If not then I'd prefer to just use the onboard graphics for now as it would cut down on electricity consumption so my UPS would have less load.

I haven't noticed any slowdowns while using Windows so far, but are there any programs that actually take advantage of the graphics card? Even video encoding usually uses the cpu right?

Thanks.
 
Unless you are using 3D graphics, there is no need for the 8800GT unless you are planning on using folding at home or something similar that can utilise CUDA. But for your needs, its all about the CPU.
 
After googling, it seems like photoshop doesn't really use the video card much at all. You would probably be fine with integrated graphics. Still, if I were you, I would use the 8800gt anyway. It won't really consume much power at all when it's not being heavily utilized.
 
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