XPS 8700, remove added dGPU and switch to iGPU?

Question

Hi,

I have an XPS 8700 purchased in 2014 that came with an added discrete AMD Radeon R9 270 installed. I would like to remove the AMD and use just the iGPU from the Intel i7-4790 but I'm concerned about being, well, a noob. From what I can tell from the Device Manager, and from reading other posts, the iGPU have been disabled. Is it a just a matter of downloading the Intel drivers for the i7-4790 to run the iGPU? Should I do this after I remove the added dGPU or before and will the AMD drivers currently on the PC mess up the Intel drivers? Any suggestions would be extremely helpful!

pearls96 · Accepted Answer

Transplant successful. Thanks for all your tips. Both PCs are running nice. No real hiccups along the way.

RoHe · Answer

@pearls96 - Can we ask why you want to remove the add-in GPU?

Chances are good your add-in GPU gives you better performance than you'll get using integrated graphics. Add-in GPUs have at least some extra memory on the card, but the integrated graphics only uses system RAM, which reduces the amount available for other things.

And since the integrated graphics are on the CPU, they make extra work for the CPU, which -otherwise- would be handled by the add-in GPU.

JOcean · Answer

The integrated graphics are disabled WHEN you have a discrete video card. If you remove the video card the onboard graphics will be enabled. You can have both the discrete and onboard at the same time and this post describes the procedure. Especially read the post by RoHe. The AMD drivers will not affect the Intel graphics and when you pull the video card the Intel onboard graphics will be detected and Windows will auto install the drivers.

pearls96 · Answer

Thanks for the reply. I’d like to install the gpu in another computer that is currently running with just integrated graphics but will be used for applications that would benefit from some extra graphics power. The XPS8700 which currently contains the GPU is used only for data storage and basic web browsing and doesn’t really need the gpu. I’d love to buy a new gpu for the other computer but that’s not an option until the crypto currency bubble bursts again.

redxps630 · Answer

R9 270 is almost 800% times faster than onboard hd graphics 4600.

One potential use of vacant PCIex16 slot in 8700 is to use a PCIe adapter card for an M.2 nvme ssd, as 8700 motherboard provides only mSATA and regular sata ports for ssd and no M.2 slot for ssd. 8700 bios does have uefi feature which can support nvme ssd. Whether one can boot from nvme ssd in 8700 is still a question.
Other potentials include PCIe adapter card for more usb 3.0 ports as 8700 has only two of these natively. One can install similar adapter cards in the available PCIex4 or x1 slot too at a lower bandwidth.

RoHe · Answer

@pearls96  - Depending on the other PC model and version of Windows, you may have to disable Secure Boot in that PC's BIOS setup, before installing the card, to make it work.

Chino de Oro · Answer

@pearls96 , To use the onboard integrated graphics, simply remove your AMD Radeon R9 and start your computer.  Give it a few minutes and Windows 10 will automatically download the proper driver and installing it for you.  If you want to prepare ahead of time, you can download the driver from Dell or the latest driver from Intel and run it just in case.

speedstep · Answer

uninstall the ATI driver BEFORE REMOVING the card. Then shut down and remove card and install INTEL HD driver if needed. Afaikt there are no other issues.

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XPS 8700, remove added dGPU and switch to iGPU?

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