I recently purchased an Acer Veriton which has an i5-650 processor, Windows 7 Pro (64 bit) and Intel HD Graphics listed as the video card. I also purchased a PNY nVIDIA Quadro FX 380 PCI-E card for improved picture and home video viewing and editing. I have already replaced the original 300 wattt power supply to a 430 watt Antec Truepower I had on hand and boosted the RAM to 8 gigs from the original 4.

Question 1) Am I getting any improvement in visual quality or system speed with the Quadro or is it a waste of money and I should just save up to buy a bigger video card? This card was on sale for $115.

If I am getting improvement then I need to ask another question.

Question 2) Instructions for the Quadro installation are as follows...

1--Uninstall the existing VGA driver.
-Remove the existing Display Driver via "Add or Remove Porgrams".
-Shut down your computer.

2--Remove your Existing Graphics Board (or Disable Integrated 3D Graphics Controller).

skipping instructions on how to remove existing graphics board

-Systems with integrated (also know as on-board) 3D graphics may require you to disable the integrated 3D graphics system. Consult the owners or vendor manual that came with your PC on how to properly do this.

So is the Intel HD Graphics considered a 3D graphics controller? If so should I just contact Acer or can anyone give me instructions?

Thanks in advance for any help.