Onboard video vs. card - Sonar DAW

warble2

warble2

Not an expert
Hey all,
I built a new PC for recording a couple months back, and have been tweaking and getting her ready to do some hopefully serious recording soon. I've got it running pretty well - 2.1 Ghz AMD 64 dual-core, 2 gigs ram, Windows XP Pro SP2 and Sonar 7 Producer. I'm curious though if the onboard video is a good idea, or if I should move to a PCI Express card. I have my Echo Layla 3G in one of the PCI slots, and am only dedicating 128 megs to the onboard video memory. I've got the MS patch for dual processors and the AMD dual-core optimizer installed as well. Things are performing almost where I'd like them to.

The mainboard is a Asus M2A-VM with a AMD 690G northbridge and a ATI SB600 southbridge (Radeon X1250 based chip). I guess a concern would be getting the right video card that wouldn't bee too much of a hog. I'm not even sure honestly if that would be better than the onboard or not?

Experiences with this anyone?
 
Are you having issues with the intergrated video (slowly refreshing when moving windows or scrolling)? If not, I'd stick with it. I think a good rule of thumb for your DAW is the less unnecessary stuff you have on it, the better. The additional video card would just be one more thing taking up system resources.

However, if you plan using it for video games or video editing, it might be a good idea to bump it up. If you're just using it for audio, I'd keep it bare as possible. If you're concered about having multiple monitors in the future, there should be boxes available (Matrox, Sp?) that are compatible with most cards, intergrated or not.

Hope this helps!
 
Are you having issues with the intergrated video (slowly refreshing when moving windows or scrolling)? If not, I'd stick with it. I think a good rule of thumb for your DAW is the less unnecessary stuff you have on it, the better. The additional video card would just be one more thing taking up system resources.
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agree on the first part, but not the second. i promise you that disabling onboard video in favor of a (presumably) more powerful gpu card will NOT be "taking up system resources" any more than leaving it stock, but it is guaranteed to increase performance because (a) gpu on card is likely more powerful, perhaps by a longshot and (b) using a vid card WILL free up system memory as it has dedicated memory onboard, and doesnt have to share with the rest of the system. not to mention that dual monitor support is basically a given with modern vid cards.

that said, the 690G platform isnt all terrible, and the ati graphics onboard is far from the horrors often associated with onboard graphics. though it can be a memory hog at defaults, the assignable RAM size should be adjustable in the bios. you can even overclock the x1250 with ati tool, if you so desire.
a
 
toobalicious said:
agree on the first part, but not the second. i promise you that disabling onboard video in favor of a (presumably) more powerful gpu card will NOT be "taking up system resources" any more than leaving it stock, but it is guaranteed to increase performance because (a) gpu on card is likely more powerful, perhaps by a longshot and (b) using a vid card WILL free up system memory as it has dedicated memory onboard, and doesnt have to share with the rest of the system. not to mention that dual monitor support is basically a given with modern vid cards.

that said, the 690G platform isnt all terrible, and the ati graphics onboard is far from the horrors often associated with onboard graphics. though it can be a memory hog at defaults, the assignable RAM size should be adjustable in the bios. you can even overclock the x1250 with ati tool, if you so desire.
a
Click to expand...

+1 I couldn't have said it any better than that.
 
toobalicious said:
agree on the first part, but not the second. i promise you that disabling onboard video in favor of a (presumably) more powerful gpu card will NOT be "taking up system resources" any more than leaving it stock, but it is guaranteed to increase performance because (a) gpu on card is likely more powerful, perhaps by a longshot and (b) using a vid card WILL free up system memory as it has dedicated memory onboard, and doesnt have to share with the rest of the system. not to mention that dual monitor support is basically a given with modern vid cards.

that said, the 690G platform isnt all terrible, and the ati graphics onboard is far from the horrors often associated with onboard graphics. though it can be a memory hog at defaults, the assignable RAM size should be adjustable in the bios. you can even overclock the x1250 with ati tool, if you so desire.
a
Click to expand...

Sounds logical to me. Only abnormal stuff I've seen is the screen
"jarring" slightly - very slightly when opening videos using Windows Media Player. Haven't tried any other players though.

I have adjusted the allocated memory in the bios for video, but am thinking a move to a card would simply free up the used ram, and perhaps be a better performer if I should move to a dual monitor setup. The onboard ATI video does do dual monitor - I have a LCD hooked up via DVI right now, and there is a standard VGA output as well. Hooked up another monitor and it seemed to work OK.

I guess the biggest thing I'm wondering about is how the onboard video affects the bus as opposed to popping in a PCI Express video card along with my Layla PCI card (which is the old standard PCI). If what you're saying on on the mark, I shouldn't really expect and resource gobbling changes. :D

Thanks for the input so far.
 
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