Question Any "material" benefit from Dell/Amd Radeon HD8490 graphics card

[wpshooter]

Have Dell/Amd Radeon HD8490 graphics card in my Dell Optiplex 7020 sff desktop.

In light of fact that system has 32gb of RAM, and I don't do any gaming or anything else with high intensity graphics, do I gain
any "material" benefit from using the graphics card as opposed to the system's analog on-board Intel graphics ?

One reason I am asking is that the fan on the graphics card apparently has some wear of the fan bearings because it is noisy for a short while after boot, quiets down after a short period, and I don't think this is due to decreased speed of the fan, think fan is slightly bad.

I know I can buy another card for small price but can't really see that if there is no benefit to having the card in the first place.

Thanks.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I don’t understand your question.

If you mean a discreet card vs onboard video just try using the onboard video to see if it’s good enough.

 

[SamMaster]

The amount of RAM is inconsequential to how the onboard graphics card will perform as it takes a small amount regardless of RAM. The biggest benefit for you for having a discrete card is the video out ports, but it already has two DisplayPort connections, so unless you need three or more screens you should be good.

 

[Spjut]

I don't know how much it differs in practice for just basic usage, but if it's the Intel HD graphics 4400, it should be better than the HD 8490. The Intel supports DX12 and has a driver from 2020, whereas the HD 8490 is DX11 and stopped being supported in the end of 2016.

 

[wpshooter]

My Dell 7020 has I7 processor so it is supposed to have Intel 4600 graphics on-board. So does that make it better, worst, or the same as the 4400 ?

Thanks.

 

[SamMaster]

The differences will be minimal, in favor of the 4600. Again, for non-gaming/graphic-intensive tasks (watching videos is not intensive), the Intel 4600 GFX is fine. For anything like MS Office, browsing, Youtube, Netflix, etc, even some Photoshop (especially with 32GB of RAM), you are set with the onboard.

 

[wpshooter]

Thanks, that is what I was thinking. Am going to pull the card out and give it a try, that way won't have the noise and won't be using quite as much power.

 

[wpshooter]

I pulled the card out and boy that sure cured the noise problem, can hardly even tell the computer is running.
However, when I issued inxi -Fxz command at my Linux Mint terminal it says under graphics line: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics. But on the PDF of specs for the Dell Optiplex 7020 sff it says 4600 graphics for the I7 processor, why is this listing different ?

Is that just another name for the Intel 4600 ?

Thanks.

 

[SamMaster]

According to the link below, the HD graphics generation runs on Xeons and 4th Gen CPUs, which is why you see both in the description.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=170390

 

[wpshooter]

Thanks.