Hello folks,

I have, what might be a silly question, for you. As the title suggests, I want to know what exactly is the interaction between an APU and a dedicated graphic card on the same motherboard.

You see, I've heard of AMD's APUs, but I never gave it much thought since I knew the integrated graphics were discrete-level. But now I'm building a new rig, and one great thing I actually never knew about the APUs, was their affordable price. I'm tempted to get an A8 2.90 GHz quad--nothing too crazy--, and use it with a GTX 560 ti I just bought, on the same motherboard.

I know the APUs have integrated graphics, so I'm wondering, how do these two interact (by two I mean the integrated vs the dedicated)? Is it like Nvidia's Optimus technology? Or systems with APUs only allow its integrated graphics only?

Because what I want is to use the APU as, of course, my processor, and use my GTX as my sole graphics card, and I don't want the APU's integrated to get in the way.