Where should I plug in my monitor -- Motherboard or Graphics card?

Posted by Jeremy White on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Jeremy White
Published on 2012-02-24T06:16:32Z Indexed on 2012/09/28 9:40 UTC
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graphics-card

Assuming I am using the following equipment...

motherboard with HDMI/DVI & no embedded graphics
discrete graphics card (nVidia or ATI) on PCI-E slot
Intel CPU with integrated graphics

...where should I plug my monitor into the computer?

Presumably, I'll get the fastest speed on games connected directly to the graphics card. But there is also power savings when connecting to the motherboard and accessing the Intel on-board graphics.

I've read that some motherboards can switch automatically between the Intel graphics and discrete graphics. Is that something that works well, and where do I connect the monitor to enable that?

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