JustABox

but what causes the OEMs to choose to put a graphics card on top of an APU rather than using a more powerful APU or just not using an APU at all?

yeah, OEMS are confusing. I am curious if anybody knows why

But a bigger question is, why would they include a graphics card if the APU can provide. In my case, the APU was almost just as powerful as the dedicated graphics card, and all it was effectively doing was making the computer hotter, and raising the price

Thats marketing. Most uneducated buyers belive that higher GHZ and core count means faster, and on top of that, a GRAPHICS CARD.

I have seen many prebuilts that have an APU as their CPU, but also have a dedicated graphics cards. For example, this dell computer has an A10-9700 AND an RX560. What is the point of this. Back in 2016, I made the mistake of buying an HP prebuilt that boasted an A12-9800 CPU, an R7 450 dedicated graphics card, and 16GB of DDR4 ram. This computer wouldn't display anything to the monitor unless it was plugged into the graphics card. In 2017 I realized that I had an APU and a graphics card, so I took out the R7 450 that was in there and was able to run that computer off of the motherboard's output. Are they running in crossfire?? I didn't see anything that would hint that. Why would Dell, HP, and so on do this? Are they just stupid?? I would expect them to know more than I do...