Virtua software works with any video card [i.e. discrete card] and the built in video capabilities of these new CPU's. However, the only caveat may be that the card needs to be DX11 compatible.
http://www.lucidlogix.com/product-virtu.html
I'm trying to figure out how it actually works. I just put together a system using a new z68 Gigabyte board and wanted to use the GPU that is in the 2600k. Long story short, the system was so frickin' slow. When I tried copying data from the Gigabyte MB disc to the HDD, it took 15 minutes to copy over 300mb.
After some internet searches, I decided to put my GTX 460 in and installed the drivers. The system was now screaming fast like it was when I had my MSI P67 board installed.
Anyhow, I haven't found much info on this Virtua software, like a manual. In order to use it, I have or had to unplug the HDMI from the GTX 460 and plug it into the z68's HDMI port, then run run desktop properties and "detect monitor" (because it now thought there were two monitors) to sync with the 2600k GPU. Once the cable was installed on the Z68, I was able to access the Virtua control panel. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even install the software until I put the HDMI on the Z68. It would not work when the cable was on the GTX 460.
I'm sure I'm not doing something right with this software. I even ran a test with a video converter software that takes advantage of Intel® Quick Sync Video. Considering I couldn't use this feature when I had the P67, I figured it would work now with the Z68. I don't know but there was no difference between the conversion using the HDMI on the Z68 and then again with the HDMI connected to the GTX 460. I think the conversion program by default used the Nvidia CUDA settings for both of my tests.
I'm a little unsettled on whether or not to sell my P67 board. It is really nice but I'm not using it now. The Z68, is cheaper, but I'm not really seeing the added benefit of the Z68 and having to swap cables is a hassle, but I'm not really up to doing another system rebuild. Screw that. I don't know if it was the z68/2600k GPU or if it was the fact that I installed Windows 7 and the old Windows 7 was archived, but it took 2 1/2 hours to do the install, which I had to do twice (~ 6 hours from the time I started to the time I ended) because I wasn't sure if the install was working, so I hit the reset button. When I built the P67 system and used a fresh new HDD, the install took about 20 minutes tops. I was really impressed at that time.
Once Vitua is up and running and you bring up the control panel, it looks like this:
I'm trying to figure out how exactly this works. I see that there is an "On" button and there is a "red button" on the discrete card, so I'm having to guess that this is the card that is in use? Even though I have the HDMI cable connected to the Z68 board and not the GTX 460? I wish there was some sort of bench mark test I could run so I can see if it's actually working, and then see if I can manage not swapping the HDMI cable.
I'm going to test this again later this evening when I get home from work. I'll press the "on/off' button on this control panel. I believe when it shows "off" the red button will appear on top of the icon that states "processor graphics". If this does happen, I'll test my video conversion software and run that conversion again and see how long it takes. It took 13 minutes to convert an FLV to AVI that was 200GB in size. Using two GTX 460's in SLI on my old q9300 system took more than 5 hours.
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