Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

DEATHCON51

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 31, 2012
29
0
I was doing a little reasearch on some GPUs and noticed that you can get a chip, or like a thicker, card-like prosesing unit. If I have an AMD little chip built in, can I use a Nvidia? Or, what's the difference between the two cards?:confused:
 
Swapping out the GPU only really applies to desktop computers (yes, there are exceptions, but small ones). AMD and NVIDIA are separate companies, you can't CrossFire an AMD GPU with an NVIDIA one, nor can you use SLI with an NVIDIA GPU and and AMD one.

Differences… well, you can either get a really technical explanation or a really simple one. Simple one: different chip designs, different design execution, some software performs better with an AMD GPU, some with NVIDIA. Depends on how they're optimized.
 
Ok, if my desktop computer has the little chip GPU in it that is an AMD Raedon 6800, can I use a nvidia GPU in my computer?
 
Yes I was talking about the integrated one. So, if I have an integrated AMD, I can use a, the thicker one with the fan (lol) without having to replace either?
 
Okay, I'm assuming you're not talking about a Mac Pro here, since I've never heard of one with an integrated GPU before.

But yeah, you can use whatever provided you've got the proper slot for that shiny new GPU you plan on popping into your computer (PCI-e 16x if we're talking about a newer machine). You'll have to disable the integrated GPU first though. Usually you do that through the BIOS, but since I'm guessing we're talking about a Mac, I'm not 100% sure how you'd go about doing that.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.