TR Forums

Hey guys. So I recently purchased and just received in the mail an Asus HD7790 2GB graphics card for my computer. This is the first graphics card I've owned, and so far everything has gone smoothly with the install process. I'm looking through the AMD Catalyst Control Center (had to fix the overscan), and there's definitely a lot of cool settings to play around with. Are there any tips or tricks I should know about right off the bat to optimize performance? The comp is mainly used as an htpc and some gaming second. Any input appreciated!

Also, do I need to uninstall the drivers for the onboard HD4000 graphics or does that not matter?

You don't need to install drivers for the Intel integrated graphics (HD4000) if you have a discrete graphics solution. (You don't have to uninstall them, and I'd leave them installed in case something happens to your GPU and you need to plug back into your motherboard to get a video signal.) Just plug your video cable (I'm assuming it's HDMI) into your graphics card instead of the ports already available on your motherboard. If you're planing on using this as a HTPC first with gaming second I'd just update to the latest official WHQL (non beta) drivers and be done. You can use the Catalyst Control Center to boost your GPU clocks and memory speed, but you're adding extra heat and noise to your system and potentially shortening the life of your card.

*added the second sentence

What he said:

Install card
Install Catalyst drivers
Plug display cable into graphics card instead of motherboard's IO cluster.
Fire up some games or 3D applications and enjoy the improvements.

Your motherboard's BIOS settings are most likely set to AUTO, choosing a dedicated graphics card over the IGP. If you're not noticing any obvious difference in 3D graphics output, check for a BIOS setting that is similar to "Initiate display first <IGP/PEG> and make sure it's set to PEG (PCI Express Graphics)

If you want to see what a dedicated GPU can do for your media playback, download and try the Smooth Video Project

If your motherboard supports Lucid Virtu, you may want to look into whether or not that's something for you.

The overscan thing with AMD cards & HDMI is annoying, I'll give you that.