What's the difference between the video outputs from mobo and graphics card?

ElectrikBlew

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Nov 28, 2014
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Although this feels like a pretty stupid question, I believe it's warranted coming from someone who has only just bought their first PC from years of using laptops.

When I was finally ready to plug in my system to a monitor and download my favourite games, I notice the different video outputs on my Asus Z97-A and my Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 970. The monitor that I had came with a VGA cable, and the only VGA output was on the motherboard. After plugging it in and turning it on I got no display. Eventually I had to dig up an old DVI cable and found that I had to plug it directly into my graphics card.

The question is, do I use the video outputs on the motherboard at all? Or is that only if I don't have a dedicated graphics card?
Thanks.
(Also, when I plug my speakers into rear speaker output, they don't work, and I had to put them in the front speaker output. Is this normal?)
 
Solution
You want to use the ones on the graphics cards typically. The ones on the graphics card will actually use the GTX 970 to and have the power it has. This will give the best results for gaming performance.

The ones on the motherboard use a different GPU, they use a graphics card inside of your processor. This is a much lower performance one, not really meant for playing games. However if you have a second display you can plug it into this to be able to use both monitors without a performance hit.

For your audio question, could be the back audio output is bad. Make sure you got it in the right place in the back.
You want to use the ones on the graphics cards typically. The ones on the graphics card will actually use the GTX 970 to and have the power it has. This will give the best results for gaming performance.

The ones on the motherboard use a different GPU, they use a graphics card inside of your processor. This is a much lower performance one, not really meant for playing games. However if you have a second display you can plug it into this to be able to use both monitors without a performance hit.

For your audio question, could be the back audio output is bad. Make sure you got it in the right place in the back.
 
Solution