Integrated graphics plus card?

[pzkpfw]

I'm a bit out of touch...

1.

Looking at buying a new desktop, something like this: http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/desktops/no-monitor/auction-457526765.htm

(edit: or this http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/desktops/no-monitor/auction-457526765.htm )

When using one of the CPU's with integrated graphics, while also having a separate graphics card installed, is it usual to be able to use both?

2.

Intel i7 or AMD FX 8 ?

Matters? Doesn't matter?


Cheers,

[sil3nt]

It either uses the integrated graphics or a graphics card not both.

Go Intel.

$2000 is a quite a lot for a PC. What are you using it for?

[pzkpfw]

Thanks,

(I have an idea I once had an AGP card working at the same time as the on-board graphics on an old 1Ghz Celeron desktop here, but that may be a faulty memory. Seems such a waste to put the effort into making a CPU+Motherboard do graphics, then so many machines don't even use it).

Mostly I just do .Net programming, with SQL Server, IIS and stuff. With a little casual gaming on the side.

I'm sure I could probably get away with spending way less, maybe $1200 or so, (from what I've read, an i5 might be just fine for me; and with my gaming being barely above Civilization II level, a cheaper graphics card would probably be fine) but for once in my life I feel like getting something up the curve a bit.

It's actually bloody hard choosing. I can't be arsed building from bits, so looking among the shops (Quay, Advantage, Xtremesystems) and Dell : and it's all such six of one, half a dozen of another stuff.

This lot can do SSD's, that lot can't. This one has a 1Tb HDD, that one is 2TB but is slower. This video card is worse than theirs, but their system RAM is bigger. It's hurting my head.

Rant over.

[sil3nt]

Don't worry I feel your pain. Far too many parts and opinions on PC builds!

Important things

Get at least 4GB of ram.
Get an i5 or i7.
Get an SSD if you can live with less than 150GB of data on your drive.

[SMOKEU]

Buy an i5 2500K with a Z68 board and an M4 64GB SSD. A 6950 will top it all off and you'll have a nice package for a reasonable price.

[James Deuce]

Give me a ring.

[pzkpfw]

Don't worry I feel your pain. Far too many parts and opinions on PC builds!

Important things

Get at least 4GB of ram.
Get an i5 or i7.

Yep.


Get an SSD if you can live with less than 150GB of data on your drive.

Yeah, I've heard that can make quite a difference. Messing with the system builder at Advantage, I can get a not-so-good but good-enough video card, and use the $ instead to get a 60GB Intel SSD first HDD and a 1TB second HDD. Probably make more real difference to me than a faster graphics card.

[iYRe]

actually, that first advert is misleading. It DOES NOT have 13 Ghz, it has 4 3. something ghz cores. They may or may not be used all at the same time.

I normally recommend intel, but lately I have been using the new AMD CPU's and they are good - alot cheaper too.

4-8 GB RAM (most probably dont bother with more than 4 unless you are using 64 bit - 32 bit only allows the use of 3.3 GB).

Everything else should be as big and as fast as you can get (SSD for the operating system is good, if you can afford it).

These days you dont really need a separate graphics card unless doing video/graphics/etc (note, things like media encoding (video/audio) use CPU and not video). For the most part the on board graphics cards are decent. But then, they do use (share) RAM, so for a hundy you can get a budget 1 GB RAM video card - might as well if you can.

[SMOKEU]

I normally recommend intel, but lately I have been using the new AMD CPU's and they are good - alot cheaper too.


Sandybridge is still a whole lot better than Bulldozer. Put a 2500K against any quad core AMD chip and the Intel is much faster and better value for money. BD was a bit of a disappointment after SB.

[Fast Eddie]

dunno, I assemble pcs from ordered parts for people from time to time eh.. quite a fan of the AMD chips.. cheaper than Intel and grunty as - plus u can overclock them with great sucess and no reliability problems if your that way inclined (and even know what that means lol) these days the chipsets come with auto clocking software too so you dont have to do anything but push a button and away she goes, self tuning.

SSD's are pricey, and 64gb or 100gb is Fall.. I have 2TB and out of space.. anything less than a TB is f all these days in my opinion. not when some software packages/games n stuff are running in the 10's of gbs installed and high res photos, songs etc etc all in best quality are large file sizes

if u can put a battery in a bike you could build your own for a fraction of the cost and have exactly what u want in it.

try pricespy.co.nz to get the jist of what shops are charging what for the bits you want.

its piss easy and u will save money which should be used on motorbikes anyway

[wharekura]

Thanks,
Mostly I just do .Net programming, with SQL Server, IIS and stuff. With a little casual gaming on the side.

MY opinion is ensure u have shit load of ram for virtual machines (so maybe go for 64bit?) so u can chuck SQL Server in one of them - of note, SQL Server 2012 is out if u want to be bleeding edge even though ur customers probably not. Sure u can run different versions concurrently but nothing like seperation of concerns.

[Sable]

Integrated graphics are complete garbage. Also, the series of graphics card is usually more important than its RAM capacity.

[sil3nt]

I have a 250GB HDD that has around 50GB free. Whenever it gets full I just delete games and the download folder. God knows what people keep to fill up 1TB!

AMD is good value for money. It is what I went for. Whenever I am doing video editing I do wish I went for Intel though....

[iYRe]

Integrated graphics are complete garbage. Also, the series of graphics card is usually more important than its RAM capacity.

They aren't garbage at all.. I have a linux box running XBMC and a gigabyte mainboard with onboard graphics (an nividia chipset) - it plays 1080 video on my plasma without any issues at all...

It just all depends how much money you have to spend.. if you dont have much, you make do.. if you have money to squander, go spend a grand on a video card.

[iYRe]

I have a 250GB HDD that has around 50GB free. Whenever it gets full I just delete games and the download folder. God knows what people keep to fill up 1TB!

AMD is good value for money. It is what I went for. Whenever I am doing video editing I do wish I went for Intel though....

Yup, if you're editing/encoding video, intel is the way to go.

I have 7.5 TB worth of disks on my media machine. 2 TB for "work related" files (customer backups, etc), 2 TB of music/movies/TV, 2 TB of misc stuff (where I download from my torrent server in England), and 1.5 TB for the OS and misc other stuff.

Plus I have a laptop (640GB), and a second PC with 1.5 TB, and a few USB drives of varying sizes (from 120GB-2TB). Storage is cheap, and when you have had to deal with as many clapped out HDD's as I have, you learn to have as many as possible around with your important stuff on them.

[Sable]

They aren't garbage at all.. I have a linux box running XBMC and a gigabyte mainboard with onboard graphics (an nividia chipset) - it plays 1080 video on my plasma without any issues at all...

It just all depends how much money you have to spend.. if you dont have much, you make do.. if you have money to squander, go spend a grand on a video card.

Doesn't play games though does it.

[iYRe]

Doesn't play games though does it.

nope.. why would I bother? I got bikes to ride.. children to rear, etc etc.. no time for games.

[SMOKEU]

I have a 250GB HDD that has around 50GB free. Whenever it gets full I just delete games and the download folder. God knows what people keep to fill up 1TB!



My MP3 collection on its own wouldn't even fit on a 250GB drive. With all the movies and software it's over 2TB.

[sil3nt]

Doesn't play games though does it.http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/10

[Sable]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/10

Now the bad news. Despite huge performance gains and much improved compatibility, even the Intel HD Graphics 3000 requires that you run at fairly low detail settings to get playable frame rates in most of these games. There are a couple of exceptions but for the most part the rule of integrated graphics hasn’t changed: turn everything down before you start playing.

This reality has been true for more than just Intel integrated graphics however. Even IGPs from AMD and NVIDIA had the same limitations, as well as the lowest end discrete cards on the market. The only advantage those solutions had over Intel in the past was performance.
Realistically we need at least another doubling of graphics performance before we can even begin to talk about playing games smoothly at higher quality settings.

[pzkpfw]

MY opinion is ensure u have shit load of ram for virtual machines (so maybe go for 64bit?) ...

Yep. Going 64 bit is half the reason I'm looking at upgrading. Truth is my old Centrino 2, 4 GB, 320 GB, 512MB GeForce 9200M GS laptop does pretty much everything I need - but it's running 32 bit Windows Vista, I need better to support certain clients, and I can't be arsed upgrading (and I want to give the laptop to my Son as he's outgrowing his PC).

---

On the drive thing: I really don't get how people end up with so much data.

My complete boxed set of Led Zeppelin at high quality (but not raw) ripped to just 8GB. I'd never listen to 100 GB of music. I mostly watch movies once, so even if I did get them digitally, I'd never fill a drive with them - they'd get deleted. Even years worth of Family photos haven't filled a drive. (Partly because I don't bother taking them at much higher res than any device I'll view/print them on?).

I've still got two beer crates full of Vinyl from the old days, but I don't understand "collecting" digital Music and Movies.

---

On the integrated graphics is crap thing: yeah, depends on what you are doing. Playing the latest games at "Ultra quality" - nope.

For me, the question was about using both on-board and card at the same time; as another avenue to multiple monitors (yes, the cards do multiple monitors anyway).

(Even if the integrated graphics was crap, that wouldn't matter if it was just running a monitor showing some sample code I'd googled up, while I worked in one of the other monitors (which in this case (coding) wouldn't need to be all that flash either, really)).

---


actually, that first advert is misleading. It DOES NOT have 13 Ghz, it has 4 3. something ghz cores. They may or may not be used all at the same time. ...

I see people complain about that in the TradeMe message board too, but I don't really mind it. TradeMe has a box that lets sellers enter speed. Multiplying by number of cores gives some ability to compare CPU's in the absence of a separate descriptor for cores.

Yes, it's not fully accurate as it depends on the software in use, but calling it misleading is, I think, over stating it.

[sil3nt]

Now the bad news. Despite huge performance gains and much improved compatibility, even the Intel HD Graphics 3000 requires that you run at fairly low detail settings to get playable frame rates in most of these games. There are a couple of exceptions but for the most part the rule of integrated graphics hasn’t changed: turn everything down before you start playing.

This reality has been true for more than just Intel integrated graphics however. Even IGPs from AMD and NVIDIA had the same limitations, as well as the lowest end discrete cards on the market. The only advantage those solutions had over Intel in the past was performance.
Realistically we need at least another doubling of graphics performance before we can even begin to talk about playing games smoothly at higher quality settings.OP wants to play Civ II. The latest integrated graphics can play Civ V at 15fps.

[wharekura]

Getting one with integrated graphics is good for a backup if ur gpu dies for whatever reason - unless of course u have a spare card in your pocket.

[pzkpfw]

OP wants to play Civ II. The latest integrated graphics can play Civ V at 15fps.

Yep.

This page rates my laptops card as 142 : http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/mid_range_gpus.html

This page rates Intel HD 3000 as 397 : http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

...and I quite happily play "Medal of Honour: Airbourne" on my laptop. So yep: it's all about perception and what you want to do. (I'm certainly not going to pay top dollar for whatever is the current "best" card. (Something like a GeForce GTX 560 Ti seems good bang for buck at present).


Getting one with integrated graphics is good for a backup if ur gpu dies for whatever reason - unless of course u have a spare card in your pocket.

That's very plausible. I can even imagine being between selling one card on TM and not yet having bought the next, so temporarily using the on-board.

(Given fan noise (and even power consumption) might be noticible, it still seem naff that the card can't be disabled and the on-board used - under choice. There doesn't seem much technical challenge in that, and some laptops do it...)

[SMOKEU]

Multiplying by number of cores gives some ability to compare CPU's in the absence of a separate descriptor for cores.

Yes, it's not fully accurate as it depends on the software in use, but calling it misleading is, I think, over stating it.

No it doesn't give you an indication of performance, and yes it is completely misleading to multiply clock speed by the number of cores. Clock speed often has little to do with performance of a component. Just compare a modern Intel chip with the same clock speed AMD chip and you'll quickly have your answer.

You wouldn't call a CBR1000RR a 4 litre bike just because it has a 1 litre engine with 4 cylinders, would you?

[pzkpfw]

No it doesn't give you an indication of performance, ...

So (with the right software) a single core 2 GHz CPU won't (in general) be slower than a Quad core 2 GHz CPU?

Why do they even make multi-core CPU's then?!


... and yes it is completely misleading to multiply clock speed by the number of cores....

You need a quick-and-dirty way to compare. I still don't see the issue. It seems like train spotting to me.


... Clock speed often has little to do with performance of a component. Just compare a modern Intel chip with the same clock speed AMD chip and you'll quickly have your answer.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it still gives a basis for some kind of comparison. (e.g. a Quad core AMD chip would, I expect, out perfrom (with applicable software, etc...) a hypothetical single core Intel chip of the same "speed"). For that matter, the TradeMe search function doesn't have "Intel" versus "AMD" options - so you may as well complain that the simple "speed" based search is "completely misleading".


You wouldn't call a CBR1000RR a 4 litre bike just because it has a 1 litre engine with 4 cylinders, would you?

I see what you're saying, but that's not a directly applicable analogy. (I'd expect a car built with a CBR1000RR engine front and another in back, to be more powerful than a single CBR1000RR bike.)

Perhaps more to the point, would be the formulas used in racing to make try to "match up" rotaries with regular engines, or twins with the 4 cylinder bikes. (i.e. how they don't all have the same cc rating limits).


(However, I do note now that TradeMe, in the descriptions (not the search function) does have a "cores" option. In that case the "speed" rating ought to just be the base clock speed.)

[SMOKEU]

So (with the right software) a single core 2 GHz CPU won't (in general) be slower than a Quad core 2 GHz CPU?

Why do they even make multi-core CPU's then?!


Processor architectures are so different that it often makes little sense to make a comparison. Put a 4GHz Pentium 4 against a 4GHz Sandybridge in a single threaded benchmark and see the difference.

The whole "more cores is better" approach is often marketing bullshit as how many people outside a server environment are going to use more than 3 cores? Perhaps doing video encoding but other than that there is little sense in going for more, slower cores than fewer, faster cores which is the approach AMD has taken.

[sil3nt]

It is a lot more complicated than it seems.

4 cores running at 3ghz does not give you 12ghz.

There are all sorts of bottlenecks that means you won't get anywhere near 13ghz of performance.

If you really want to know more then it is best to google and read up but you could probably read for hours about it.

[pzkpfw]

It is a lot more complicated than it seems.

4 cores running at 3ghz does not give you 12ghz.

There are all sorts of bottlenecks that means you won't get anywhere near 13ghz of performance. ...

Yeah, I know it's more complicated than that. Cache size + speed, etc etc etc.

I'm certainly not saying that 4 cores at 3GHz actually gives you 12GHz equivalent.

I just think in the absence of something better, I don't see what's such a big issue in using that as a quick and dirty way to compare.

As SMOKEU points out (post #25), an Intel and AMD CPU, with the same number of cores, running at the same speed, won't actually give the same performance. So why, in that case, is simply stating the clock frequency so much better anyway?

(

Processor architectures are so different that it often makes little sense to make a comparison. Put a 4GHz Pentium 4 against a 4GHz Sandybridge in a single threaded benchmark and see the difference. ...

So Joe Average, sees these two CPUs being sold on TradeMe, both listed as 4GHz - and doesn't know which is "best".
)


... If you really want to know more then it is best to google and read up but you could probably read for hours about it.


As you point out, to know the full details and really be able to compare two CPUs would take hours of reading (let alone the motherboard it's stuck in, etc). Is Joe Average buying a PC off TradeMe going to spend those hours?

Again, I'm not saying "speed" should be stated as cores x clock - I just don't see why people are so up in arms about it.

[SMOKEU]

The best way to "measure" performance is to go to sites like overclockers.com and tomshardware.com who do many hardware benchmarks using different benchmarking tools, so the end user can make an informed decision in relation to which hardware best suits their needs. I've just been studying CPU architecture as part of the degree I'm doing and there's a hell of a lot more to performance than just clock speed and cache.

[pzkpfw]

... I've just been studying CPU architecture as part of the degree I'm doing and there's a hell of a lot more to performance than just clock speed and cache.

Yes.

I'm not arguing against that at all.

(And for the record, it's quite possible I've been "studying CPU architectures" (to varying levels of depth at different times) longer than you've been alive.)


The best way to "measure" performance is to go to sites like overclockers.com and tomshardware.com who do many hardware benchmarks using different benchmarking tools, so the end user can make an informed decision in relation to which hardware best suits their needs. ...

I totally agree with that, too.

{strikeout}All I'm saying, is that for Joe Average, that kind of thing just isn't going to be done. Mavis the Granny down the road isn't the type to go to overclockers.com. So some basic measure doesn't seem so bad. It's not totally accurate. Sure. But what (within the grasp of Joe Average) is?{/strikeout}

Actually, the main reason I mentioned this issue at all, was I just don't get why people have a such a strong negative reaction to the whole issue. What's the big deal? If someone is going to do the kind of research you suggest, then they'll understand the clock x cores "measure" is (partly) bollocks anyway. It all seems a minor thing to get worked up about.

[SMOKEU]

{strikeout}All I'm saying, is that for Joe Average, that kind of thing just isn't going to be done. Mavis the Granny down the road isn't the type to go to overclockers.com. So some basic measure doesn't seem so bad. It's not totally accurate. Sure. But what (within the grasp of Joe Average) is?{/strikeout}

Actually, the main reason I mentioned this issue at all, was I just don't get why people have a such a strong negative reaction to the whole issue. What's the big deal? If someone is going to do the kind of research you suggest, then they'll understand the clock x cores "measure" is (partly) bollocks anyway. It all seems a minor thing to get worked up about.

Under the fair trading act it's illegal for a seller to misrepresent goods they are selling. Dramatically overstating the performance of a chip falls under that category.

[pzkpfw]

Under the fair trading act it's illegal for a seller to misrepresent goods they are selling. Dramatically overstating the performance of a chip falls under that category.

Call the Police! Call Interpol! Call the FBI! Won't somebody please think of the children?


(Hysterical over-reaction. (Which was my original point.))

[SMOKEU]

Call the Police! Call Interpol! Call the FBI! Won't somebody please think of the children?


(Hysterical over-reaction. (Which was my original point.))

I wouldn't be surprised if the police and FBI got involved in this, seeing as they are willing to do a raid on someones house just because they own a cloud based storage service (Kim Dotcom).

What's next, are the cops going to arrest landlords just because some tenants decide to undertake illegal activities in a rented house?