This is part of This post, but is a separate topic I suppose. Does having an onboard videocard slow the performance of any of the components of the motherboard if not in use? or is there any other detriment? Essentially, I'm poor but I need a new computer (previous one is dead). Since the Video card is by far the most expensive part of the computer I want to buy all the other components and then throw in a video card at a later date. So best case scenario I get a motherboard with an onboard video chipset (I can't use my old ATI9700 Pro because it's AGP) and use it until I can throw on a 8800 GTS. Thanks in advance, -Justin
Having onboard video without another video is going to suck performane a bit because it uses system memory, however it probably won't matter much because generally the only time you'll need all your memory is during an intensive game or if your into heavy graphics or animation programs in which onboard would be useless anyway. So basically you'll be fine but just remember to disable onboard graphics when you pop in the new vid card.
In terms of CPU or disk performance, you won't see any problems with the onboard graphics. However, as Exfoliate said they do use a bit of your system memory, which can usually be adjusted in your BIOS. If you're not going to be doing graphically intensive things, you shouldn't notice a difference than if you have a dedicated card.
