Are Radeon R7 graphics as good as a dedicated card?

mwddrwg

As in the title, in essence.

Lad wants a new gaming PC for Christmas and some of those I'm looking at have AMD Radeon R7 integrated graphics as opposed to a dedicated graphics card.

I know that integrated graphics have been generally not as good as a seperate GPU so is this still the case these days? He wants to be able to run Minecraft at high frame rates and play online smoothly (we have 60 meg broadband).

Opinions appreciated. Cheers!

Was considering this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTRA-FAST-QUADCORE-Desktop-Gaming-PC-Computer-Bundle-4-2GHz-8GB-1TB-AMD-193669-/141782876858?hash=item2102eb02ba:g:uFMAAOSwLa9UU8dR

Has 8GB of RAM which I hope will be enough

Neil_Jones

You don't need anything fantastic for Minecraft - most recent laptops will run it quite happily.

For anything else, it will probably struggle. Integrated graphics have come on leaps and bounds in recent years but nothing will beat dedicated graphics cards, especially at really high resolutions on really big monitors.

jaydeeuk1

Short answer, no. AMD integrated graphics need high speed memory to work at their best, I doubt the budget build above will be 2000+mhz 4gb sticks (dual channel). It will play minecraft ok I imagine, it isn't exactly battlefield 4 in the graphics stakes, but if he likes to play anything more intense he may be disappointed.
If you do not have a copy of windows you may need to budget £30 or whatever windows costs.

These budget bundles will often have the cheapest nastiest monitors, keyboards and speakers, you'll probably do better finding a separate desktop and monitor etc.

8gb is plenty though, can't think of any game that requires more than 4gb, perhaps in 2 or 3 years time maybe. Price is 'ok', and adding in something like a 750ti will make it into a pretty decent machine, but thats another £80.

You just missed out a load of sedatech bargains over the last day, I'll keep a look out for any others.

GunJack

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTRA-FAST-QUADCORE-4-3GHz-GTX-750-Ti-2GB-Graphics-8GB-Gaming-PC-Bundle-195089-/131453081554?hash=item1e9b36d7d2

from the same seller, for an extra £45 this would be a far better machine, inc. a 750Ti and a much better procesor (benchmarks 5000+ as opposed to 3200 on the one in the OP

jaydeeuk1

GunJack wrote: »

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTRA-FAST-QUADCORE-4-3GHz-GTX-750-Ti-2GB-Graphics-8GB-Gaming-PC-Bundle-195089-/131453081554?hash=item1e9b36d7d2

from the same seller, for an extra £45 this would be a far better machine, inc. a 750Ti and a much better procesor (benchmarks 5000+ as opposed to 3200 on the one in the OP

I'd agree with that - much better VFM.

mwddrwg

GunJack wrote: »

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTRA-FAST-QUADCORE-4-3GHz-GTX-750-Ti-2GB-Graphics-8GB-Gaming-PC-Bundle-195089-/131453081554?hash=item1e9b36d7d2

from the same seller, for an extra £45 this would be a far better machine, inc. a 750Ti and a much better procesor (benchmarks 5000+ as opposed to 3200 on the one in the OP

Thanks for all your input. £400 is a bit steep but looks the part. Will probably need to stretch to this. Many thanks

GunJack

mwddrwg wrote: »

Thanks for all your input. £400 is a bit steep but looks the part. Will probably need to stretch to this. Many thanks

a machine like that should last you (in terms of performance, at least) many years, I can't see you needing anything else for probably 5 years, and even then depending on your then-useage possibly not...

however, as with all things, shop around and you may get a similar spec for less or possibly with an operating system for similar dosh...

JasX

+1 vote for the dedicated graphics card every time

Tho do point out to your son that your monitor probably only displays at 60hz (ie 60 fps) so anything rendering above 60 fps (Frames Per Second) I've always found fairly spurious

you can check the monitors refresh rate under display properties

gonzo127

just incase you hadnt noticed, those systems do NOT include windows!!!! you would need to budget an extra £70 ish for a genuine copy of windows

granted you can get a 'refurb' copy of windows 7 for about £35, on amazon, which would probably work ok

Cisco001

If you don't mind used machine, spend £150 - 180 on used 2nd gen i5 on ebay like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Elite-8200-Tower-Intel-QUAD-i5-3-10GHz-4GB-DDR3-500GB-HDD-Win-7-WiFi-Y/231721529490?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D33958%26meid%3Dfdff8e2bff6247629fb1f5ff46322f0b%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D262086995181

Then £90 on GTX 750ti

Probably £35 on better PSU

Then a second handed screen

Fightsback

Cisco001 wrote: »

If you don't mind used machine, spend £150 - 180 on used 2nd gen i5 on ebay like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Elite-8200-Tower-Intel-QUAD-i5-3-10GHz-4GB-DDR3-500GB-HDD-Win-7-WiFi-Y/231721529490?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D33958%26meid%3Dfdff8e2bff6247629fb1f5ff46322f0b%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D262086995181

Then £90 on GTX 750ti

Probably £35 on better PSU

Then a second handed screen

Be wary of those HP elites they use non standard PSU connectors to the motherboard so rewiring required for a standard ATX psu upgrade.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Gaming-Read-Only/Upgrading-PSU-in-Elite-8200/td-p/885637