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Hello.
I just have a rather philospohical question:
If I bought a new computer tomorrow, I would perhaps buy it with new Windows 7 (for games) and of course, install Arch (for normal work).
But, since I want to have an optimal performance/price PC, I would consider Intel i3 530 with Intel HD Graphics (or how it is called). But at the same time,for games an acceptable graphic card would be let's say Radeon HD 5670 512 MB. I'm very sorry that I would buy a Radeon graphic crad, but they seem a bit cheaper, more powerful, consuming less energy and producing less heat that Nvidia Fermi let's say (a big failure I think).
May I use those 2 graphics in one PC in the way that Linux would use just integrated Intel graphics and Windows would use just Radeon?
And is there an easy way how to do that? Or I would just have to switch off the integrated/Radeon graphics in BIOS every time I would reboot from Linux to Windows or viceversa?
Thanks.
Last edited by ancient_archer (2010-05-16 10:23:49)
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Well, linux kernel 2.6.34 will provide "online" GPU switching support, but I guess that's not really an issue in your case. It's very easy to specify in xorg.conf which graphics card it should use. I guess that the real deal would be the need to plug your display to either Radeon or Clarkdale graphics video output whenever you'd like to boot into another OS.
May I ask why would you even want to do something like this? If you're concerned about power efficiency, I believe that the Radeon with fglrx driver wouldn't be power hungry when running in 2D mode only. I think that it would be actually more efficient than having two graphic cards and using only one at the time as you proposed.
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When I was thinking about it more, I found out that you're right. Perhaps the "problem" I described here is that radeon fglrx drivers and its performance don't have good reputation and partly because I know how difficult it is with Radeon. Well, performance would not be the issue here, but perhaps the problems... I use Radeon (but Radeon 9600 Pro) myself on Linux.
Therefore I thought that it would be better to use Intel graphics I consider more problemless.
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