If I am getting a laptop with no intentions of gaming with it, is there any reason to get a laptop with a dedicated video card? Could it play hd movies with integrated graphics? What are some other reasons to get a laptop with a video card besides gaming?
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
-
Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
Dedicated/Integrated video card question
- Thread starter nu8reed
- Start date
EQTakeOffense
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2002
- Messages
- 1,643
There's not too many reasons. HD Movies should be fine, depending on the CPU, as most of the processing will have to be done by the CPU instead of the GPU. I'd say a decent laptop with C2D would be fine for HD movies.
Justintoxicated
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2002
- Messages
- 14,522
I have no problems with mine on my lenovo, and I play games on it...Well SNES Emulators...it's like having a portable super nintendo 
Plays HD movies fine and its 1 18.ghz dual core low voltage
Plays HD movies fine and its 1 18.ghz dual core low voltage
I won't say you can't play HD movies with integrated graphics, but discrete graphics often have better hardware-accelerated playback, resulting in less load on the CPU. This will be the most true of some of the latest HD-supporting codecs like H.264
A discrete card will also have its own dedicated RAM, unlike an integrated solution.
Finally, if you do plan to run Windows Vista, you'll probably get a little better performance if the Aero Glass UI is turned on. Not saying Intel's X3100 solution can't do Aero, but it isn't at the performance level of a basic nVidia or ATI discrete GPU.
The one point for the integrated solution is that you will probably get slightly better battery life with it.
A discrete card will also have its own dedicated RAM, unlike an integrated solution.
Finally, if you do plan to run Windows Vista, you'll probably get a little better performance if the Aero Glass UI is turned on. Not saying Intel's X3100 solution can't do Aero, but it isn't at the performance level of a basic nVidia or ATI discrete GPU.
The one point for the integrated solution is that you will probably get slightly better battery life with it.