Running AGP simultaneously with onboard graphics?

You can indeed not use the onboard videosolution in combination with an AGP card. Intel (not Dell) designed the chipset so that if an AGP card is used, the onboard (chipset) videosolution is disabled (to give the AGP card all available resources/bandwidth I would venture to guess).

If you have a tower model, any dual monitor videocard should work (you mentioned you bought a low end Nvidia videocard, which usually uses relatively little power, so a low end dual-head videocard would work for your needs).

However if you have a desktop model or small form factor, you will need to look for a half-height AGP card, or if it's a desktop model, the riser can accomodate a full size PCI videocard (which would allow you to use the onboard videosolution in combination with the pci card).

AGP has only 1 SLOT. There is no such thing as DUAL AGP cards. The onboard video is one form of AGP. Putting in an AGP card DISABLES BY DEFAULT the onboard video. PCI cards are the only video cards that allow 2 video cards or 1 AGP and 1 PCI card. It works that way with my Optiplex GX110 that I can have Onboard and PCI video that both work at the same time. My experience with PCI NVIDIA TNT cards is that they work in the GX1 and GX110 and probably others. This is why DELL packaged them that way so that if a user had a need for more graphics power they could do so with a TNT VANTA card.

TNT VANTA PCI cards are Very inexpensive. Even Geforce FX5500 PCI cards are inexpensive being $129 retail and more like $80 street price.


YOU CANNOT HAVE 2 AGP cards at the same time. This is Not allowed. This is also why DUAL AGP SLOT motherboards do not exist and never will.