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Comment by ashark | Hacker News Reader

Good news for me. Recently, after some reflection on the causes of most of my frustrations with both laptops and desktops over the last decade or so, I've decided to give up on AMD and Nvidia for now. #1 source of all frustrations, hardware-wise. I'd rather put up with being a bit out of date on gaming than keep messing with them. Cheaper that way, too. And it's not like AMD's competitive anymore[1] so I'm going to be buying Intel anyway.

Dedicated graphics cards: awful under Windows, even worse under Linux, seemingly the cause of all the worst problems in laptops (even Apple). Intel graphics it is, for lack of another option that doesn't suck.

[1] :-(

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I don't know why a non-gamer would bother with an AMD/NVIDIA graphics card. Even a developer. If the most graphically intensive thing you do is watch YouTube videos or Netflix, use the Intel integrated video. It's plenty good for those things. I totally agree with you there.

But on the flip side, as a gamer, I couldn't imagine giving up my discrete graphics cards on my gaming desktop. How many years back and how low resolution and graphics settings do you have to go before you find a game which is playable on an integrated chip? I guess it depends a lot on your definition of "playable", and your game selection; if GOG is where you regularly buy games then the integrated chip is probably more than adequate. Or if you're using a single 800x600 monitor, you're probably ready to run the latest games on your integrated chip. But otherwise, I can't seriously recommend anyone play games on an integrated video chip.

Sidenote: I would choose the touchpad as my #1 source of hardware frustration. Anecdotally, I haven't had much issue with graphics cards, other than one replaced under warranty.

Some people do OpenCL / CUDA work as GPUs do some things exponentially faster than CPUs do. Nvidia pretty much beat everyone in this game, including Intel, with the Phi.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-5775c-i5-5...

44fps in Bioshock Infinite on Medium at 1080p using Iris Pro 6200 graphics.

Also runs on a console from seven Moore's Law doublings ago, 720p@30. Though maybe not at the equivalent of medium?

Yeah, integrated graphics are still just pretty much good enough for those interested in playing some games once in a while; anyone expecting serious gaming performance even on the highest end chip is going to be disappointed. On the plus side, you can get a ton of firepower for $200 these days, which is pretty low given inflation and what GPUs cost in the 90s.

Don't count AMD completely out yet. Zen could still be good next year. I hope. Completely redesigned architecture! Please AMD?

holy moly how times have changed. a few years ago such an opinion was objectively unthinkable.

What frustrations are you talking about?

I'm a pretty heavy gamer and I would never do without a dedicated GPU.

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