nice article: Graphics chipset - Integrated VS. Dedicated

[bigtiger]

I was obsessed about dedicated vs integrated graphic card. I came across this article today and would like to share with everybody here.

There are essentially two different types of graphics processors that can be found in computers in general: integrated and dedicated.

Integrated graphics parts are a part of the motherboard, of the system itself. Motherboards have at least one core chip called a Northbridge, which controls functions like RAM, the PCI Express bus, and how the rest of the computer interfaces with the processor. Integrated graphics have the graphics core built into the northbridge, and they share their video memory off of your RAM. As a result, they eat a little bit of the bandwidth your system is using to interface with the RAM, and reduce the amount of system RAM available. Most integrated parts tend to share that memory dynamically, though, meaning they only take what they need. Only the Radeon Xpress integrated parts have their own memory, and only in AMD systems.

Despite the shared memory, there are many benefits to integrated parts. They improve battery life, reduce the cost of the notebook, and allow the notebook to run cooler as it doesn’t need to cool an extra dedicated chip.

The flipside is that they generally offer very poor performance for gaming, with the fastest integrated parts still being beaten handily by the slowest dedicated parts.

And speaking of dedicated parts: a dedicated graphics core is separate from the northbridge, and has its own video memory. This means it doesn’t siphon off the system RAM, although some parts (typically lower end) do dynamically share from system RAM as needed, though only when it would improve performance (and you’ll never see them do so in regular Windows operation, only during gaming).

Dedicated graphics parts will always outperform integrated parts, albeit in varying degrees. If you’re going to game on your system, you’ll need one of these.

The problem with dedicated parts is that they drive up the cost of the notebook, can increase the temperature (as they need to be cooled by themselves), and reduce the battery life. Additionally, due to the power draw and cooling issues, dedicated parts seldom find themselves in ultraportable notebooks.

My research also shows that:

1, Current Integrated video card generally will outperform a dedicated card 1 or 2 years old.

2, integrated card basically does not perform well in 3D applications.

3, integrated card uses some bandwidth, but not that much and should impact the general performance of laptop.

4, integrated card is preferred due to concerns like, battery life, heat issues and weight.

I borrowed some ideas from this forum too.

Anyway, I am happy with my intel GMA950 card in my X60S.

[dsigma6]

2, dedicated card basically does not perform well in 3D applications.

Is that a typo?
edit: I was hoping so!!

[bigtiger]

2, dedicated card basically does not perform well in 3D applications.

Is that a typo?

Typo. Corrected.

[dsigma6]

Even though I hardly do any gaming, I stay away from integrated. To get all analogical with it, to me it's like a car with true dual exhaust versus one with a single pipe that splits into two.

As usual, my analogies don't make a direct connection to what we're dealing with, but in my mind it works.

[fbrdphreak]

Even though I hardly do any gaming, I stay away from integrated. To get all analogical with it, to me it's like a car with true dual exhaust versus one with a single pipe that splits into two.

Ah, but with a car a true dual exhaust isn't always necessary and sometimes can hurt more than it helps (zero backpressure on a four banger for instance).

And if you never game, then you may not need a discrete card at all. Take a looksie:
http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=40

[dsigma6]

true dual exhaust isn't always necessary

Burn the heretic!

Those are some very good numbers from the article supporting integrated graphics! I didn't read the entire thing, but I wonder if that was with the powerplay on or off..

[fbrdphreak]

true dual exhaust isn't always necessary

Burn the heretic!

It cam standard on my GTO, so what can I say

PowerPlay was enabled, WiFi was not.

[tomh009]

Even though I hardly do any gaming, I stay away from integrated.

Three words for you: heat, heat, heat!

On the X series, integrated is all you have -- but I ordered integrated for my dad's T60 as well, to keep the heat (and fan noise) down.

[dsigma6]

I play Halo CE, and while it's certainly not going to strain a GPU like a new game, it only heats up to 60C-ish. That's only 5-10C up from idle.

I get what you're saying though.

[sapibobo]

How about the size of the whole physical built? Do laptops with dedicated card tend to be larger in size than the integrated ones?

I heard in various forum, some platform with the dedicated option tend to be larger in size (even though they provide the integrated). The same reason can be applied for X60. Integrated need more rooms and hence it wont fit X60 size.

[christopher_wolf]

Integrated need more rooms and hence it wont fit X60 size.

You mean "Discrete", yes?

That is true to some extent; dedicated systems usually have additional dedicated hardware, which the system in question already has. Integrated chipsets, almost always by Intel, usually use the rest of the system (more RAM, PCI, memory handling, etc) and therefore don't need extra space for that hardware.