Do SandyBridge "K" Integrated Graphics Obviate Need For a Video Card?

[ErnestMcGill]

For purposes of photo editing (with Photo Mechanic, Lightroom v3, Photoshop CS-5 and the usual assortment of common miscellaneous plug-ins and similar software,)  does the integrated graphics on the new Intel SandyBridge CPUs, particularly the 3000 graphics on the K version, obviate the need for a discrete video card (Graphics Processing Unit?)

 

[DeanChriss]

The short answer is "yes", assuming the mother board is set up to make use of the processor's graphics capabilities. In that case the motherboard will have the video connectors and appropriate ancillary components on it, and no other video card is needed. It's important to note that most systems that use this have a specific reason, such as being very compact or low cost. Most high end motherboards do not make use of the processor's graphics capabilities because they assume end users will want more flexibility.

[Farmer]

I think the OP is more asking in terms of those applications which leverage the GPU for processing rather than physically connecting a display.

The answer is that whilst the onboard graphics can support these apps the performance will be limited compared to additional GPUs particularly in regard to memory available for textures and the like.

So I'd say the answer is "sort of" :-)  A relatively cheap graphics card will typically provide more performance and will reduce the load on the CPU further.

[DeanChriss]

For what it's worth, the performance Intel's Sandy Bridge HD3000 GPU is roughly equivalent to AMD's Radeon 5450 or NVIDIA's 310M graphics cards.

[ErnestMcGill]

the performance will be limited compared to additional GPUs particularly in regard to memory available for textures and the like.

  I don't put textures on my photos.     What else is included in "and the like" that might benefit from a discrete GPU?

[Farmer]

That's not the textures I'm talking about.  Textures relates to the GPU mapping the image and moving it around on your screen and so forth.  That takes memory, and discreet GPUs have their own, it's usually very fast, and it doesn't use up other system RAM.  It's also available directly to the GPU, rather than via the system's memory controller and bus.

Dean made a good note, providing comparable discreet cards to compare to the Sandy Bridge GPU capacity.

Since we also don't know how much unannounced future products will leverage the little super computers sitting on those GPUs, but we can see that a lot of vendors are heading in that direction, it's reasonable to suspect that more powerful GPU cards will be more useful.