Use of graphic card?

[nitin1]

I have considered 3 laptops till now:

first is: i5 4th gen/ 4GB RAM/ 500GB hard disk/ 1 GB graphic /Windows 8/ 45k INR
Second: i5 4th gen/ 4GB RAM/ 1TB hard disk/ no dedicated graphic/Ubuntu/ 41k INR
Third is: i5 4th gen/ 6GB RAM/ 1TB hard disk/ 2 GB graphic /Windows 8/ 49.5k INR

I am confused between 1st and 2nd. They are giving me 500 GB storage extra but they are not giving me graphic card. But in 1st, they are giving me graphic card at the cost of storage.

I also want to ask what is the use of dedicated graphic card? I am not a gamer and I just listen to music, code in different languages and use software like Visual Studio etc.

Please tell me both the things. Which laptop shoudl I buy and graphic card thing? Thanks.

[Hiroshe]

The 4th gen's actually have pretty decent integrated performance (for normal work). If your using GPU rendering for movies, it actually out performs NVIDIA dedicated graphics cards (atleast it does on my computer using LAV decoders)! So if your not playing any graphics intensive games, or rendering 3D scenes or something, you don't really need it.

If the laptops don't have optimus, then the graphics cards will also hog more battery life. (optimus allows you to switch between integrated GPU and deticated GPU). I mostly do programming on my computer, as well as music & movies, and usually my dedicated graphics is off.

That being said, I sometimes use my GPU for very large numerical computation. It can be used to accelerating a lot of interesting algorithms. So it's kind of nice to have it there if I need it. Also, it's nice to have the extra speed if I ever end up playing some game thats graphics intensive.

[mike_2000_17]

The second option seems pretty good. I think that you will be perfectly happy with integrated graphics, like Intel HD Graphics that come with their boards. The only thing that is a little weak with option 2 is the amount of RAM, I think that 4GB of RAM is a bit low (remember, with integrated graphics, the graphics work off of the main RAM memory, so, 4GB of RAM is really means that about 3 to 3.5 GB will be used for main tasks and 0.5 to 1 GB for graphics). If that option can be customized to include more RAM (like 6 or 8 GB) and still be within your price range, then that could be preferrable. An additional 4GB of RAM should cost in the range of a few thousand INRs.

I also do not have dedicated graphics for my laptop, and I'm perfectly happy with it. I think that dedicated graphics card is really just useful for serious gaming. The integrated graphics from Intel are very good and fast and will work very well for most purposes. It's only if you want to play the most recent games at the highest graphics quality settings that you will hit performance problems, but they will work fine on mid-level settings, and for everything else (not games) you will not notice any difference at all. And integrated graphics also have the advantage of being better integrated with the rest of the hardware, have less driver issues, make the laptop smaller / lighter, and consume less battery power.

Otherwise, I would say that option 3 seems like a better deal from a bang-for-your-buck perspective, because it has quite a bit more than option 1 (almost double everything) for only 4.5 kINR more.

[nitin1]

@mike Don't you think 1st is better? It has only 500GB hard disk difference with option 2. Because Ubuntu is free and I will install on first day only. So in cost of 4.5k I am getting Win8 and 1 GB graphic ard. People say you will have problem if you will use AUTOCAD, MAYA like software without grapic card.

Secondly, you can't upgrade grahic card once you purchased a laptop as it is a chip on board. If you will need graphic card in future, you can't put that at any time. I am not a gamer at all.

Thirdly, is there any option to switch off graphic card?

Please answer them.

[mike_2000_17]

The first option is certainly good. I mean, all three options are good. But I think that if you consider going for the first option, you should seriously consider going for the 3rd option because having 2GB more RAM, 500GB more HDD, and having a twice better graphics card, and all that for an additional 4.5kINR is a real bargain, in my opinion. Only one of those upgrades by itself is worth about the extra 4kINR, all three is a bargain.

Thirdly, is there any option to switch off graphic card?

Maybe. I think this depends on the chipset (motherboard) and the graphics card itself, and you might have driver issues (especially in Linux, you might not be able to turn it off). But I'm not very knowledgeable on these things.

[Hiroshe]

If it has NVidia Optimus or ATI Hybrid, then yes, you can switch the GPU.