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SXX 18 hours ago

No dedicated GPU is certainly unrelated to whatever been happening for last two years.

It's just in last 5 years integrated GPUs become good enough even for mid-tier gaming let alone running browser and hw accel in few work apps.

And even before 5 years ago majority of dedicated GPUs in relatively cheap laptops was garbage barely better than intrgrated one. Manufacturers mostly put them in there for marketing of having e.g Nvidia dGPU.

amiga-workbench 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A dedicated GPU is a red flag for me in a laptop. I do not want the extra power draw or the hybrid graphics sillyness. The Radeon Vega in my ThinkPad is surprisingly capable.

vee-kay 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Dedicated GPUs in gaming laptops are a necessity for the IT industry, as it forces manufacturers, assemblers and software makers to be more creative and ambitious with power draw and graphics software, and better optimal usage of available hardware resources (e.g., better battery and different performance modes to compensate for the higher power consumption due to the GPU; so a low-power mode enabled by casual user will disable the dedicated GPU and make the OS and apps dependent on the integrated GPU instead, but same/another user using same PC can switch to dedicated GPU when playing a game or doing VFX or modeling).

Without dedicated GPUs, we consumers will get only weaker hardware, slower software and the slow death of graphics software market. See the fate of Chromebooks market segment - it is almost dead, and ChromeOS itself got abandoned.

Meanwhile, the same Google which made ChromeOS as a fresh alternative OS to Windows, Mac and Linux, is trying to gobble the AI market. And the AI race is on.

And the result of all this AI focus and veering away from dedicated GPUs (even by market leader nVidia, which is no longer having GPUs as a priority) is not only the skyrocketing price hikes in hardware components, but also other side effects. e.g., new laptops are being launched with NPUs which are good for AI but bad for gaming and VFX/CAD-CAM work, yet they cost a bomb, and the result is that budget laptop market segment has suffered - new budget laptops have just 8GB RAM, 250GB/500GB SSD, and poor CPU, and such weak hardware, so even basic software (MS Office) struggles on such laptops. And yet even such poor laptops are having a higher cost these days. This kind of deliberate market crippling affects hundreds of millions of students and middle class customers who need affordable yet decent performance PCs.

iancmceachern 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For me it's a necessity to run the software I need to do my work (CAD design)

silon42 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same here... I do not wish for a laptop with >65W USB-C power requirements.

trinsic2 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yea I agree it's not worth it to have a igpu a dedicated. If I'm correct in what you are talking about. There's always issues with that setup in laptops. But I'd stay away from all laptops at this point until we get an Adminstration that enforces anti trust. All manufactures have been cutting so many corners, your likely to have hardware problems within a year unless it's a MacBook or a business class laptop.

trinsic2 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yea mid-tier is a stretch. Maybe low-end gaming

SXX 14 hours ago | parent [-]

Low end gaming ia 2d indie titles and they now run on toasters.

All the popular mass matket games work on iGPU: fortnite, roblox, mmos, arena shooters, battlen royales. Good chunk of cross platform console titles also work just fine.

You can play Cyberpunk or BG3 on damn Steam Deck. I wont call this low end.

Number of games that dont run to some extent without dGPU is limited to heavy AAA titles and niche PC only genres.

ChoGGi 9 hours ago | parent [-]

You can play doom the dark ages on steam deck. Granted at 30 fps, but it's still doom with ray tracing.

Fabricio20 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm gonna be honest thats not my experience at all. I got a laptop with a modern ryzen 5 CPU four years ago that had an iGPU because "its good enough for even mid-tier gaming!" and it was so bad that I couldn't play 1440p on youtube without it skipping frames. Tried parsec to my desktop PC and it was failing that as well. I returned it and bought a laptop with a nvidia dGPU (low end still, I think it was like a 1050-refresh-refresh equivalent) and haven't had any of those problems. That AMD Vega gpu just couldn't do it.

copx 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No Ryzen 5 system should have any trouble playing YouTube videos, there must have been something wrong with your system.

rabf 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thats a problem with youtube not your gpu!

Iulioh 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What processor are we talking about?

Your experience is extremely weird