[SOLVED] Graphics card + on-board video used together

[Cuss_ed]

I have a friend (yes it already sounds like one of 'those' stories). Bear with me. They are running two monitors. One is a 4K off their graphics card and another is a 1k off Integrated. The 4k is for gaming and the 1k is a general purpose (reading etc). When gaming the 1k is turned off. Now I seem to remember when it wasn't possible to use both at once but obviously that has changed. The focus here is RAM allocation to the on-board chip causing lag when gaming. My friend lives on the other side of the world so i can't sit down at their pc. Their BIOS is UEFI and they're a little afraid to tamper so i'm looking for knowledgable heads re. this type of mobo BIOS and video know-how in general. Mine is an old rig with traditional in/out so I'm almost clueless. They're mobo is 4-5 yrs old.
So, to be able to use this dual gpu setup, does that mean a RAM allocation is occurring at startup? If BIOS allocation were set to zero would this not be possible at all? I seem to remember this type of allocation was small (128meg -256meg). I'll bet it's bigger now. (they only have 8g RAM)
The video card used has 11g v/ram and 4 hdmi ports. (Why use Integrated is still unclear)
And, even if the secondary monitor is off does the allocation still occur? Ergo unavailable RAM?
Should they drop the Integrated connection? Why? (potential bottleneck?)
Also, does using for example, 4 monitors each with an external power source use much more pc power? The way I see it is once the GPU has 'processed' the graphics the rest is just signal. Is that right?
Some advice / feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[Eximo]

No reason to use integrated graphics. A GPU with 11GB of memory narrows it down to only a few, and they wouldn't even tick over running a second monitor.

It is mostly just the signaling going to the monitor, which causes a very small additional power requirement. However, the data processing will always take more power from the system itself, just that power isn't directly related to running the monitor. Still has to hold everything in VRAM and calculate the color of each pixel, even if it is just a simple text or website.

If they can afford a GTX1080Ti or RTX2080Ti, tell them to get some more RAM.

 

[Cuss_ed]

No reason to use integrated graphics. A GPU with 11GB of memory narrows it down to only a few, and they wouldn't even tick over running a second monitor.

It is mostly just the signaling going to the monitor, which causes a very small additional power requirement. However, the data processing will always take more power from the system itself, just that power isn't directly related to running the monitor. Still has to hold everything in VRAM and calculate the color of each pixel, even if it is just a simple text or website.

If they can afford a GTX1080Ti or RTX2080Ti, tell them to get some more RAM.

Thanks for your reply. Yes your thinking matches mine.
So, just to be clear, running this setup uses more cpu resources because graphics are processed by two gpu's (card 'and' integrated).
And, memory allocation through bios to on-board gpu? I'm assuming that this setup is using (wasting) ram and will continue until bios is re-configured to stop allocation.?
I know it's only a small amount, i read somewhere it goes up to 512meg now, but it's still wasted, especially when near idle uses roughly 4gig.

 

[Eximo]

I couldn't say that it use more CPU resources, the integrated GPU is still a distinct section on its own. It running will consume power and have to communicate with the CPU and memory. But so will the discrete GPU. Just shifting it. Really it is only the memory use, assuming the system is reaching 8GB of usage. Otherwise it doesn't matter at all. Say 6GB of memory consumption, means the system doesn't need the rest.

Depends on the integrated chip and setting how much it will use. But disabling it should prevent it from being used at all. No need to set anything for the memory usage.