Hi there all. I have been coming across many technical support forums and what not stating that graphic chipsets cannot perform as well as a graphics card. However, it seems to me that the market today people are only looking for an affordable computer that can run Microsoft office and can surf the internet. Due to this, I think it makes it very hard to find a PC/Laptop that does not include a graphics chip built-into the motherboard. So I am wondering what others have been able to do to get around this.
In addition, I would upgrade my computer, but I am not a big fan of someone disabling the graphics chipset and installing a graphics card due to past problems I had, where some games or applications just did not discover the upgrade I made from an onboard graphics chipset to a graphics card. I am not sure if the repair guy did not know what he was doing, and maybe did not fully disable the chipset, or if that is how it was 15 years ago. All I do know is that some games or applications just reported that my graphics display was not supported, when it should of been, and I am just a bit weary that I would be going through the same problem again, especially if the repair man does not know what he is doing.
As long as you install a the drivers for your graphics card and plug your display into the video out on the GPU, you will not have any issues with a desktop getting the graphics mixed up.
Laptops on the other hand are sometimes a bit trickier because they like to use the onboard graphics to save battery life when possible, but it still should be pretty simple and you can force the computer to always use the dedicated GPU pretty easily.
There’s definitely some Xeon processors and enthusiast processors that do not include graphics on the CPU, like anything for socket LGA 2011.
This is not a problem with PC’s in general, but a problem with pre-built PC’s.
If you build it yourself or have it built for you our the separate parts, this is a non-issue.
If you buy the parts yourself or from a reputable place, it should even come out as cheap or cheaper then any pre-built PC would.
both links are broken, but I did a search on pcpartpicker and it the correct link. I will keep this in mind as a christmas present for myself, but I am not sure if I could beat $398, which is the cost of my laptop. Also, I always had a wish list with some of the Dell’s Alienware laptops, but a half decent one is over $2000.
If you want cheap…you can go AMD CPU and nvidia GTX 1060 OR AMD RX-480. 8-core AMD is around $160 and you can find a motherboard for ~$70. In contrast…intel will run you ~$200 for CPU and ~$90 for motherboard for a bit better performance. AMD also runs HOT.
-go for 16gb ram or 32gb if it’s in your budget.
-SSD is nice to have but they are expensive.
650-750w power supply should be adequate. I would recommend a fully modular one to help cable management.
I’m personally looking at building a rig like above but with an intel i5-6600K CPU. That is more than adequate for UE4 as I am running on an 6+ year old computer running an i5 760 and I think R9 260.
Buying Alienware is almost as big of a waste of your money as buying an Apple computer. You pay a pretty hefty premium for a silly name and a childish look.
As already mentioned previously. If you want a good, well priced computer the best way is buying the parts and putting it together yourself or pay someone to put them together for you.
