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GTX 970 - can I use onboard graphics while it's installed

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Dec 13, 2014
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Motherboard
gigabyte gaz97xud5hbk
CPU
intel i7 4790k
Graphics
evga gtx 970
Mac
  1. 0
Classic Mac
  1. 0
Mobile Phone
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If I have a GTX 970 video card, is it possible to ignore the card and just run off the onboard graphics?

I'm just in the planning stages here... I bought the card before I was considering Hackintoshing. I see lots of posts detailing trouble with this card, so wondering if I can just "skip" it and run OSX through the onboard graphics (gigabyte z97x-ud5h), ideally without removing the card (so that it would still be available to Windows).

If not, it seems the best approach is to remove the card, get OSX installed and happy with the existing hardware (and onboard graphics) and then worry about the video card later?

Thanks
 
Hi,

First post here, sorry to drag up this 2 year old post. But I have a very similar question.

I am looking at a build which will work with Hackintosh and Windows. I haven't decided on the pasts yet, but was wondering if you can have a video card installed (eg a GeForce GTX 1060, likely GigaByte) which isn't yet compatible with with Mac OSX.

So Windows would use the GTX 1060, and Hackintosh would use the Onboard Graphics until the Nvidia Drivers come out. Would that work? Or am I dreaming? I'm guessing it's not really feasible no responses to this and not being able to find much else searching around.

Looking forward to posting the build parts I'm thinking of once I nail them down, to see what everyone thinks, as I'm very new to this.

Cheers,
Dave
 
Thanks slim.jim, I appreciate the response and being pointed in the right direction.

For anyone else interested here's some info from the other thread...

Question (on page 1)
Would it be possible, though, to e.g. only use the 1070 on Windows and the Intel GPU on OS X instead? I would be fine with swapping between the graphics port on the graphics card and the motherboard when switching operating systems, but opening the case and physically unplugging the graphics card every time would be a bit much.

Question (on page 2)
So leveraging off of what MrMage previously asked.... Is there a way to tell the OS X partition to only use the integrated graphics while the windows side can take full advantage of the new 10 series? I am about to update/upgrade by build to full a skylake gaming machine in a Mac Pro 2013 LIKE case and was trying to decide on a graphics card. I want VR support but do not want to spend $300 on a 970 when the 1070 is faster then a titan x....

Answer (on page 2)
If no display is connected to the Pascal card, it won't be used. If a display is connected to the Pascal card and no drivers are loaded, it will function only at native resolution and have no acceleration or 3D capability. The Intel IGP will only be in use if you have a display connected to it. However it will still load its drivers unless disabled in BIOS.

Question (on page 5)
I'm looking to do my first build (dual boot), but I'm planning on getting the 1080. Will I still be able to set up and get everything working even without the nVidia support? I don't need to run OS X perfectly, so I can wait for better support. It just seems like it makes life a lot simpler to set up the dual-boot at the start of the build rather than waiting down the road for full card support.

Answer (on page 5)
You should be able to boot up with nv_disable=1, which would result in jerky CPU-rendered UI performance.
The other option would be using the iGPU in OS X, so you'd have to swap display cables when switching between OS X and Windows.

Wukish had some success with dual cards (page 8)
So got my 1070.
It boots up with mac with a gtx 960 as a second card. (im using the gtx 960 for osx)
obviously without driver support.
just make sure that you use 1 cable bec 2 gpus plugged into the monitor ****s up osx

cheers

(asus skylake motherboard - clover)

hooked added some great details including image attachments about their dual card setup (page 11)
Hi Everyone
View attachment 200122
Base System:
CPU= Core i7 5820K
Motherboard= Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming
Memory= Corsair LPX DDR4 2133 8x8GB total 64GB
Video Card 1= GTX1080 Founders Edition (installed 1st PCI-e slot in motherboard)
Video Card 2= GTX660 EVGA Brand (Installed in 2nd PCI-e slot in motherboard)



Results:
View attachment 200125
GTX1080 ONLY:
Clover boot requires nv_disable in order to boot
Choppy unaccelerated graphics
No Video kext loaded
Triple monitors will not work
System Profiler sees card as Display with 7mb vram
Wallpaper changes from the one set as default for my triple display
Breaks sleep



View attachment 200124 View attachment 200123
GTX1080+GTX660
Clover will not boot unless Primary init graphics is set to second PCI-e slot in bios settings
if Monitors are plugged into GTX1080 only a single monitor will work
if Monitors are plugged into GTX660 all three monitors will work just fine
System profiler sees GTX1080 as Display
System profiler sees GTX660 correctly, lists all three monitors correctly along with the correct vram, which in my case is 2048mb
Breaks sleep


My system fully functions with the GTX660

I am going to post several pictures, they are labeled with the setup information, also did a cinebench test in windows just for fun. Apparently the GTX1080 has no advantage over the GTX660 in cinebench, however all my actual games have at a minimum doubled as far as FPS with the GTX1080 vs GTX660

View attachment 200126 View attachment 200127

I'll let anyone else interested in more info look through the other 50 pages in the thread.

Thanks again,

Cheers,
Dave
 
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