Are integrated graphics ALWAYS the wrong choice?

[Sunner]

As many people with a clue have said, newer(i9xx for example) integrated graphics solutions are fine for pretty much anything that doesn't demand 3D performance.
A drawback could be lack of a DVI output though, if that's important to you, by all means, get a separate card.
But as far as performance in 2D apps go, any decently new integrated solution will be fine.

The problem with asking questions like this on AT is that alot of people here don't understand that gamers and business/home users want completely different things.
Once in a while someone will come along asking about a server for some business he's consulting for, watch as the crowd starts recommending homebuilt servers, overclocking, Radeon 9800's "In case you ever feel like a little CS", and so forth.

 

[pm]

Coincidence? . . . a new AT aticle: Integrated Graphics: Xpress 200 vs. GMA 950

Of course not, the authors at AT always listen to us. They saw this interesting thread and decided to create an article based on it. 😉 Thanks for the link. The article pretty much completely ignores non-3D applications except for one line: For those who truly do not need or care about 3D, integrated graphics are fine.

A drawback could be lack of a DVI output though, if that's important to you, by all means, get a separate card.

Good point.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: pm

Coincidence? . . . a new AT aticle: Integrated Graphics: Xpress 200 vs. GMA 950

Of course not, the authors at AT always listen to us. They saw this interesting thread and decided to create an article based on it. 😉 Thanks for the link. The article pretty much completely ignores non-3D applications except for one line: For those who truly do not need or care about 3D, integrated graphics are fine.

coincidence? was a rhetorical question . . . 😉

their 'timing' is superb
:thumbsup:

😀

 

[Continuity27]

It depends on your needs. If you're just doing simple tasks like MS Office, web-browsing, music playing, file-serving, etc then integrated graphics are more than enough. Despite using system memory, these solutions are still viable because these tasks don't require a top-notch PC anyways. If you add any program to the list that needs a good image quality, such as photoshop editing, or a fast framerate such as gaming, I'd steer well clear of integrated graphic solutions.

So no, it's not always useless... I'd be willing to guess that 95% of office PCs use integrated graphics packaged with standard Dell/Gateway/etc PCs, do office users need more? Hell no. If this is a computer for home, I'd get a cheap dedicated video card at the bare minimum... you don't want to limit your possibilities right?

 

[edmundoab]

for users who just want to have a decent display card,
onboard is good enough honestly

 

[Slow Eddie]

I just built a 2.66 ghz p4 system with a cheapy motherboard with intergrated video. It was a budget system, so performance wasn't much of an issue, but if I had to do it again I would go with a dedicated video card..... even if it was only 32mb. Sometimes the lag between switching between windows is enough to be annoying. I don't have this problem with my other 2.8 system with a dedicated video card.

But honestly, if I didn't also have a 2.8 I wouldn't know any better.

Eddie

 

[gobucks]

basically, integrated graphics are garbage for games. The GMA 900 is hardware compatible with the newest games, but you'll get like 10FPS in 800x600, so it's about as useful as having a Voodoo 2 with 512MB of memory - it's just too slow to be worth it. That being said, I think IGP is very useful if you don't game. It will allow you to watch movies and run office tasks just fine. In an office setting, it's great because it's one less thing that can screw up (i work in tech support at my company, so I'm really glad we got rid of our old PCs with TNT2 graphics, they broke like every day, lol).

If you have any interest at all in playing games, look elsewhere. For PCIe, a 6600 can be found for under $100 and will let you play games decently, and the GT is only $150 and gives last generation's $500 cards a run for their money. If you really wanna save some money, the 6200 Turbocache is still a whole lot faster than the GMA 900, and is south of $75.

 

[SectorZero]

Never heard the question put quite like this before.
Usually people ask, "What's better"? or "Do I need"? when inquireing about integrated vs add in graphics.

To which it must be asked, "well, what are you gonna be doing with it"?
Obiously hardcore gamers and maya/autocad users will want an add in graphics card.

But since you asked if integrated is always the wrong choice.
The answer is quite simply no.

Office productivity apps, web browsing, e-mail, pokerroom.com, all run just fine on integrated video. Even most 3d games from 3 to 4 years ago run ok on todays integrated graphics solutions. (Serious Sam SE co-op anyone?)

 

[Smoolean]

Sounds like the majority of you think that for non-gaming usage, integrated will work fine. I heard someone mention a Matrox video card that was affordable. Between Photoshop, and video editing, if a graphics card of any sort (even budget) will greatly help me, I won't hesitate to purchase one.

For those of you who believe a graphics card is always a necessity, what is a very basic card, that you would recommend with my usages in mind?

 

[wchou]

Originally posted by: batmanuel

Originally posted by: Dr X

Originally posted by: wchou

Originally posted by: Dr X
Intergrated graphics would be fine for your use - todays intergrated graphics chips are more than powerful enough for heavy 2d work.

The problems is that it will be slower then an external card regardless. I find that onboard video are both slow in 2d and 3d. Is playing divx movies 3d??? Hell no, and if its not fast enough that it just plain sucks. Find out for yourself by using Performance Test and you will see a noticeable difference between onboard and a video card.
FYI, slow 2d = slow 3d since they are related and share the same bandwidth.

Firstly, consider that he's already said he wont be using it for games, so 3D is not an issue. Secondly, find me ANY onboard card in a new motherboard that cant keep up in a 2D environment. I've used MANY and they can all EASILY dvix. I dont care what a performance benchmark tells me, because I have real world experience.

You can harp on about how it's better to have a seperate card, but at the end of the day, you need to weigh up whether it's simply wasted money, which in this case, I believe it would be.

As far as DivX and XviD goes, the CPU typically does all the decoding so even cheap onboard Intel graphics don't have any trouble with playback. With Radeon 9600/9800/X300 cards and above, though, there is a checkbox in the DivX player video settings that enables hardware accelerated post processing that improves image quality a bit.

I agree that the Intel onboard graphics are quite ghastly, but the nForce IGP video and the Radeon IGP video are actually pretty good for graphics that are almost free. I was checking out a Shuttle SFF at Fry's the other day and the Radeon IGP on it even had a DVI output. I'd personally take an onboard Radeon Xpress 200 over a GeForce 2 MX any day of the week.

And although the onboard video steals a bit of memory capacity and bandwidth, it really isn't that big of an issue considering how cheap it is to get 1GB dual channel kits of PC3200. Dual channel PC3200 provides more memory bandwidth than the AMD chips can use in most cases to begin with, so steal a bit for your frame bufffer isn't going to noticably affect performance. I will admit, though, that a Celeron running single channel memory on an 845G chipset would be sorely starved for memory bandwidth to begin with so I could see the potential for onboard graphics to make a bad bandwith situation noticably worse.

As you can see, it is hard to make a blanket statement, so you really have to look at the situation and see what the computer is being used for. Sometimes it makes sense to go with onboard video.

It's like sharing a bed, a very small bed when it would be better if it is seperated with their owned dedicated ram, GPU( the core power of a video card has it's own dedicated cpu intergrated video does not). Onboad ram uses your cpu processing power to display graphics and make calculation which slows thing down even further. This is why their are greater lag when you try to popup control panel or other menu driven application including games. I can't stand seeing my computer operate in slow motion even at 2ghz that's why I don't like it even if it's a cheaper solution.

 

[NiKeFiDO]

will those integrated graphics take your system memory or does it have its own?

 

[wchou]

Originally posted by: Smoolean
Sounds like the majority of you think that for non-gaming usage, integrated will work fine. I heard someone mention a Matrox video card that was affordable. Between Photoshop, and video editing, if a graphics card of any sort (even budget) will greatly help me, I won't hesitate to purchase one.

For those of you who believe a graphics card is always a necessity, what is a very basic card, that you would recommend with my usages in mind?

Nividia Geforce MX200 16mb AGP 4x, SIS 315_E 16mb AGP4x these are low end card but they still far better then IGP at 2ghz then if you had this card and only had a 1ghz machine. If you don't mind extreme lags that can be quite an eyesore, integrated is your best friend.
I hope integrated dies a screeching scream so video card would be cheaper since more are buying it and they produce more. When things don't sell well they don't get cheap, they become obsolete and expensive.

 

[wchou]

Originally posted by: NiKeFiDO
will those integrated graphics take your system memory or does it have its own?

Interesting questions 🙂

Let's just say it uses your ram too just like the cpu that uses your ram except it deducts from your total ram. 32mb integrated on your 256mb ram would be reduced to 224 in windows or dos. Usually the kind of graphic chipset they used are the slowest, so that's not helping much either. 😉

I hope I've answered your question.

 

[Smoolean]

Ok, I never even thought about this until today when I seriously considered purchasing a graphics card. I'm about to buy a Media Center PC (which has a PVR, S Video and RCA inputs). If I add a graphics card, aren't you supposed to disable the integrated graphics, would that mean I disabled my PVR, S Video and RCA inputs?

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: wchou

Originally posted by: Smoolean
Sounds like the majority of you think that for non-gaming usage, integrated will work fine. I heard someone mention a Matrox video card that was affordable. Between Photoshop, and video editing, if a graphics card of any sort (even budget) will greatly help me, I won't hesitate to purchase one.

For those of you who believe a graphics card is always a necessity, what is a very basic card, that you would recommend with my usages in mind?

Nividia Geforce MX200 16mb AGP 4x, SIS 315_E 16mb AGP4x these are low end card but they still far better then IGP at 2ghz then if you had this card and only had a 1ghz machine. If you don't mind extreme lags that can be quite an eyesore, integrated is your best friend.
I hope integrated dies a screeching scream so video card would be cheaper since more are buying it and they produce more. When things don't sell well they don't get cheap, they become obsolete and expensive.

NF2 IGP will kill either of these cards in 3d performance. It wouldn't even be a contest.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: wchou
As you can see, it is hard to make a blanket statement, so you really have to look at the situation and see what the computer is being used for. Sometimes it makes sense to go with onboard video.

It's like sharing a bed, a very small bed when it would be better if it is seperated with their owned dedicated ram, GPU( the core power of a video card has it's own dedicated cpu intergrated video does not). Onboad ram uses your cpu processing power to display graphics and make calculation which slows thing down even further. This is why their are greater lag when you try to popup control panel or other menu driven application including games. I can't stand seeing my computer operate in slow motion even at 2ghz that's why I don't like it even if it's a cheaper solution.
[/quote]

If I'm understanding you correctly you're saying that intergrated gfx will use some kind of software emulation akin to a Winmodem?
In either case it's simply not true.

 

[wchou]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: wchou
As you can see, it is hard to make a blanket statement, so you really have to look at the situation and see what the computer is being used for. Sometimes it makes sense to go with onboard video.

It's like sharing a bed, a very small bed when it would be better if it is seperated with their owned dedicated ram, GPU( the core power of a video card has it's own dedicated cpu intergrated video does not). Onboad ram uses your cpu processing power to display graphics and make calculation which slows thing down even further. This is why their are greater lag when you try to popup control panel or other menu driven application including games. I can't stand seeing my computer operate in slow motion even at 2ghz that's why I don't like it even if it's a cheaper solution.

If I'm understanding you correctly you're saying that intergrated gfx will use some kind of software emulation akin to a Winmodem?
In either case it's simply not true.[/quote]
Their are very few quality, expensive boards that uses hardware based chipset, yes I agree those are fast but most of the budget motherboards are not.

 

[TerryMathews]

I think we're all glossing over the fact that many motherboards with integrated graphics still have an AGP/PCIe slot. Just because the OP skips out on a video card doesn't mean he/she can't add one if the performance is intolerable in their application.

As for my opinion, I think either the nVidia or ATi integrated graphics solutions will work wonderfully for your application. Intel's integrated graphics are a dog (Sorry pm!) and always have been. AFAIK, they are still based on the i740 graphics chipset, which was a contemporary of the Voodoo2 and nVidia Riva128.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: TerryMathews
I think we're all glossing over the fact that many motherboards with integrated graphics still have an AGP/PCIe slot. Just because the OP skips out on a video card doesn't mean he/she can't add one if the performance is intolerable in their application.

As for my opinion, I think either the nVidia or ATi integrated graphics solutions will work wonderfully for your application. Intel's integrated graphics are a dog (Sorry pm!) and always have been. AFAIK, they are still based on the i740 graphics chipset, which was a contemporary of the Voodoo2 and nVidia Riva128.

Not the latest and greatest, as can be seen i AT's article linked above.

wchou
An old i810 still has a graphics core, there's no software emulation.
While it certainly does suck as a 3D accelerator(more like a decelerator) it done in hardware by the 810.

The reason they're slow isn't because of software emulation, but rather because it simply isn't feasible to integrated a more advanced core in a northbridge, you'd get a huge die size, high power consumption, and the package pincount would become too high.

 

[pm]

Intel's integrated graphics are a dog (Sorry pm!) and always have been.

My comments were only regarding 2D. Basically, I'm saying that if you are not a gamer - and thus not likely to ever need any kind of 3D acceleration, then the integrated graphics on a 915 based board, or any of the other newer boards (that have been released on the last 18 months or so) is good enough.

When you say it's a "dog" are you referring to 3D performance, or 2D performance? This is based on your usage, or a review, of the i915 chipset? What applications did you run? I agree that the older boards left somethings to be desired - particularly at resolutions above 1024x768.

As I said, I taught a class in building computers, and I recommended the i915 board with integrated graphics for anyone who was not a gamer (I had a lot more boards that I recommended, but for the "cost is my primary concern and I'm not a gamer" crowd, I recommended the BOXD915GMHLK), and about a dozen people decided to use this board.

When the systems were built, everyone loaded various apps to see how their systems worked, and I saw a wide variety of 2D apps run, including people playing movies, playing 2D games, and as far as I could see, the i915 was more than capable of these two tasks at the resolutions that people were running at, and I never saw anything that would lead me to label the graphics on these boards as anything other than "adequate".

I think everyone can agree that if you are a gamer, and aren't in the Tetris and Sims only crowd, then integrated is not going to cut it. You'll need a separate card, and practically anything you buy that was made in the last two years will be an improvement in performance over the integrated setup. But for the majority of computer users, who will never load any game more demanding than Solitaire, who don't do CAD work, and who don't run above 1280x1024 and wouldn't know a DVI connector from a VGA connector if it was the final question on "Who wants to be a millonaire?", then integrated video is just fine.

I personally would never consider buying an integrated board. I'm an avid gamer and have finished Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 and am now playing World of Warcraft most of my free time. I can only imagine what kind of framerates that I'm likely to see on WoW at 1280x1024 with the i915 graphics. But, the majority of computer buyers are not like us ("us" meaning Anandtech), and Solitaire is about the most demanding game that they are likely to play. For them, I would argue that the i915 is good enough.

 

[bluemax]

Yes and no.....

The Intel GMA900 is "decent". You'll get reasonable performance and reasonable quality.
Pro: Free, easy to set up (usually)
Con: VGA output only (no DVI, no TV in 99% of cases)
... lower quality of output (almost all IGP I've used had wavy or blurry output)
... reduce system memory (anywhere between 16-128MB or more)
... reduce system performance (by various amounts, depending on IGP, appx 10%)

Going with even a cheap add-in card instead means you gain back each of those disadvantages.
Pro: VGA, DVI, TV, VIVO(sometimes)
... Higher quality of output (better and faster RAMDACs) for cleaner, faster drawing
... No loss of system memory or bandwidth
Con: Costs a little more

Many people will be quite content with onboard video, but the small expenditure of a "decent" low-end video card WOULD be noticable even by those content users.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: pm

When you say it's a "dog" are you referring to 3D performance, or 2D performance? This is based on your usage, or a review, of the i915 chipset? What applications did you run? I agree that the older boards left somethings to be desired - particularly at resolutions above 1024x768.

Honestly, I haven't used IEG since the i810, maybe the i9xx series has an improved core? I did have a lot of experience with the i740 when it was new though. I'm 90% certain that it's the same basic hardware.

Mostly I'm referring to the 3d performance, and I think you and some other people are being a little dismissive of the importance of 3d performance in today's computer. There are a lot of parts of Windows that are 3d accelerated right now and that's just going to increase. Don't forget about technologies like DXVA and VMR9 as well; customers might not know what they are, but they'll want to know why their T2 Extreme Edition runs like crap in their new computer.

I think Intel makes great chipsets with lackluster graphics cores. I don't know what could be done to fix it though, since Intel doesn't develop graphics technology anymore; licensing a graphics core from nVidia or ATi would probably be cost inefficient, as would buying out a smaller graphics company.

Status quo it is then! 🙂

 

[pm]

The Intel GMA900 is "decent". You'll get reasonable performance and reasonable

I agree. It's not much better than "decent", or "adequate".

... lower quality of output (almost all IGP I've used had wavy or blurry output)

I did not see this on the BOXD915GMHLK at 1024x768 or less.

I would say that low-end add-on boards are likely to suffer from degraded output as well since this is a function of the RAMDAC and the quality of the components used to do the filtering. It has nothing to do with the GPU. In either case, either with integrated graphics or with a low-end card, the problem is with manufacturers trying to minimize cost and I don't see that some low-end MX board from a manufacturer no one has ever heard of is likely to spend up on the quality of the output components.

... reduce system memory (anywhere between 16-128MB or more)

I previously said that the max with the i915G is 64MB which is wrong, you are correct, it's 128MB - although it is dynamically adjusted.

... reduce system performance (by various amounts, depending on IGP, appx 10%)

I hadn't read this and hadn't heard of this. Under what conditions would a IGP degrade system performance and why/how?

 

[CrispyFried]

There are some peeps I know that only use their comps for home/small business and the only things run on them are office apps, web and email on LCD displays. They wouldnt even notice a new card as they would never run at a super rez or use any advanced features. They dont even know what "intergrated graphics" or "3d" mean 🙂

Its like putting a new trailer hitch on your car and never using it.

 

[CrispyFried]

Originally posted by: Smoolean
Ok, I never even thought about this until today when I seriously considered purchasing a graphics card. I'm about to buy a Media Center PC (which has a PVR, S Video and RCA inputs). If I add a graphics card, aren't you supposed to disable the integrated graphics, would that mean I disabled my PVR, S Video and RCA inputs?

Short answer is: "dunno." It depends on the mobo used.

Are you sure its intergrated graphics?