will a PCI-E graphics card work in conjunction with my graphics chip integrated into my motherboard?

Question

hi,

i just bought a visiontek X1550 graphics card that has an ATI radeon x1550 512 MB processing unit for a PCI-E slot. i want to put it in a HP pavilion I bought a few months ago that came with a geforce 6150se integrated into the motherboard with 128 MB dedicated graphics memory and 495 MB shared system memory for a total of 623 MB available graphics memory.

my question is this: will i lose either of these memory resources if i install the radeon graphics card?

also, my system apparently has a 250 watt power supply and the recommended wattage for the radeon is 300 or greater. will this lower the performance of the graphics card significantly? I only have a wireless network adapter card installed additionally in the PC...

any help is appreciated. thanks!

Answer 1

Integrated graphics is slow even with large shared memory. Once you put in your new PCIe card, BIOS stops allocating memory for integrated graphics. ALL system RAM now becomes available for your programs. If your 250W power supply is ATX V2.2 that has dual +12V rails, it could power the X1550. The card draws about 30 watts.
Older 250W power supplies may have a weak +12V rail, thus unsuitable.