Mobos w/ onboard graphics used for cpu-intensive tasks

[koskol]

Regarding motherboards with onboard shared memory graphics.
I intend to use one of those in a linux machine for running
cpu intensive, purely mathematical code. The machine will be accessed remotely (ssh), and only 10% of time will a full blown graphical Gnome session will be executed, for maintainance and not while code is runnning in the background.

Now, for such a setup, would the shared memory situation affect the system's performance? Is it the case that regardless of demand, the graphics subsystem reserves specific amount of memory, even if it is not being used?

Furthermore, is there some sort of a ram threshold (e.g. 512MB) after which the fact that the graphics subsystem uses system memory becomes insignificant, even for heavy gaming usage?

thanks!

koskol

[deddard]

In the bios of these machines (and any agp machine) you can choose the AGP aperture (how much memory it has access to) so you can set the lowest possible setting whilst you don't need to use it. If you really need to beef it up for the graphics when you actually are sitting in front of it, then you can always reboot and change the aperture.
If you are running anything that requires a lot of memory, then the answer is simple - stuff the machine full of it!