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integrated graphics vs old dedicated card

generic000

So long story short, I just upgraded from my old core 2 quad PC I built in '09 to a slightly less old Dell prebuilt with a i5 4460 and no dedicated graphics. I'm mainly going to use it for CAD, not gaming. Should I throw in my old ATI HD4850, or stay with the HD Graphics 4600 built into the the CPU? Yes, I did upgrade the power supply with a bigger one with the proper connections.

 

According to userbenchmark, my old card would be 175% faster. But I know people like to deride userbenchmark, and it might be apples and oranges given the difference in both age and type. I would appreciate any insight.

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The dedicated card will perform better unless your CAD software requires support for a technology that the old dedicated card does not support. For instance, a quick google search shows that the HD4850 supports DirectX 10 and OpenGL 3.3, while the HD Graphics 4600 supports DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4.3.

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To be honest, I am not really good at hardware, I shine the most in software, It's safe to say you can try it out, it would definitely increase performance, but feel free to experiment, if it doesn't, then you can just remove it right after 

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That card will be much faster than that generation of integrated graphics. The issue, as mentioned by @Hairless Monkey Boy is that some games and software require features that the HD4850 lacks. So when the card works, it'll be better than the on-board graphics, but if it doesn't work then you don't really have a choice.

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That makes sense. So even a mid tier card from '09 is better than integrated graphics from ~'15. I'll stick with the integrated graphics for now, since reliability is more important than performance. Thanks everyone for your quick help.

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Basic CAD doesnt care about the GPU, even in more complex projects you would find the i5 to bottleneck way more. Either choice wont make noticeable difference, aside from HD4850 not getting software updates earlier on so it could encounter more bugs

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

Model: HP Omen 17 17-an110ca CPU: i7-8750H (0.125V core & cache, 50mV SA undervolt) GPU: GTX 1060 6GB Mobile (+80/+450, 1650MHz~1750MHz 0.78V~0.85V) RAM: 8+8GB DDR4-2400 18-17-17-39 2T Storage: HP EX920 1TB PCIe x4 M.2 SSD + Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD, 128GB Toshiba PCIe x2 M.2 SSD (KBG30ZMV128G) gone cooking externally, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (ST1000LM049-2GH172) left outside Monitor: 1080p 126Hz IPS G-sync

 

Desktop benching:

Cinebench R15 Single thread:168 Multi-thread: 833 

SuperPi (v1.5 from Techpowerup, PI value output) 16K: 0.100s 1M: 8.255s 32M: 7m 45.93s

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I'd stick with the iGPU. The latest HD 4850 drivers are from 2013 (and therefore nothing official for Win 10 or Win 11), whereas Intel has drivers for the iGPU of your 4660 from April of last year.

 

Feel free to try both, but I'd expect the iGPU to be the better choice.

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5 hours ago, thewelshbrummie said:

I'd stick with the iGPU. The latest HD 4850 drivers are from 2013 (and therefore nothing official for Win 10 or Win 11), whereas Intel has drivers for the iGPU of your 4660 from April of last year.

 

Feel free to try both, but I'd expect the iGPU to be the better choice.

Makes sense. I think I'll go that route. But I'll leave the upgraded power supply in there. I hate cheap, low power, OEM supplies.

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9 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Basic CAD doesnt care about the GPU,

Well, if you are rendering, then it'll matter. Blender, for example, can renders using CPU or GPU, and if the GPUs are supported (in my case, Vega 64, but I have to download ProRender plugins from AMD first), the GPU just leave the CPU to dust by almost a lot. The BMW 3D Blender Render took a few minutes to render with my Vega 64 than I think close to 10 minutes (I think maybe more?) for my CPU Ryzen 5 3600. I forgot the actual time, it was a long time ago, but I remember my Vega just render like nobody's business.

I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

 

I apologies if my comments or post offends you in any way, or if my rage got a little too far. I'll try my best to make my post as non-offensive as much as possible.

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20 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Well, if you are rendering, then it'll matter. Blender, for example, can renders using CPU or GPU, and if the GPUs are supported (in my case, Vega 64, but I have to download ProRender plugins from AMD first), the GPU just leave the CPU to dust by almost a lot. The BMW 3D Blender Render took a few minutes to render with my Vega 64 than I think close to 10 minutes (I think maybe more?) for my CPU Ryzen 5 3600. I forgot the actual time, it was a long time ago, but I remember my Vega just render like nobody's business.

I dont think rendering software and CAD software are the same thing.

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

Model: HP Omen 17 17-an110ca CPU: i7-8750H (0.125V core & cache, 50mV SA undervolt) GPU: GTX 1060 6GB Mobile (+80/+450, 1650MHz~1750MHz 0.78V~0.85V) RAM: 8+8GB DDR4-2400 18-17-17-39 2T Storage: HP EX920 1TB PCIe x4 M.2 SSD + Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD, 128GB Toshiba PCIe x2 M.2 SSD (KBG30ZMV128G) gone cooking externally, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (ST1000LM049-2GH172) left outside Monitor: 1080p 126Hz IPS G-sync

 

Desktop benching:

Cinebench R15 Single thread:168 Multi-thread: 833 

SuperPi (v1.5 from Techpowerup, PI value output) 16K: 0.100s 1M: 8.255s 32M: 7m 45.93s

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7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

I dont think rendering software and CAD software are the same thing.

Hmm... Well, I'm not sure about others. I use Blender and it comes with rendering function. I think most CAD did comes with their rendering engine, otherwise, it'll be a problem compiling or rendering your works.

 

Also, certain plug-ins may take advantage of GPU as well, so this is purely on the software itself.

I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

 

I apologies if my comments or post offends you in any way, or if my rage got a little too far. I'll try my best to make my post as non-offensive as much as possible.

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7 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Hmm... Well, I'm not sure about others. I use Blender and it comes with rendering function. I think most CAD did comes with their rendering engine, otherwise, it'll be a problem compiling or rendering your works.

 

Also, certain plug-ins may take advantage of GPU as well, so this is purely on the software itself.

I use Solidworks, the GPU did nothing when the CPU's struggling hard to export a motion study... That's why I recall CAD software as they don't really care about GPU performance . At the high end you might want a Quadro but that's another league of hardware.

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

Model: HP Omen 17 17-an110ca CPU: i7-8750H (0.125V core & cache, 50mV SA undervolt) GPU: GTX 1060 6GB Mobile (+80/+450, 1650MHz~1750MHz 0.78V~0.85V) RAM: 8+8GB DDR4-2400 18-17-17-39 2T Storage: HP EX920 1TB PCIe x4 M.2 SSD + Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD, 128GB Toshiba PCIe x2 M.2 SSD (KBG30ZMV128G) gone cooking externally, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (ST1000LM049-2GH172) left outside Monitor: 1080p 126Hz IPS G-sync

 

Desktop benching:

Cinebench R15 Single thread:168 Multi-thread: 833 

SuperPi (v1.5 from Techpowerup, PI value output) 16K: 0.100s 1M: 8.255s 32M: 7m 45.93s

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21 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Snip

Indeed. If that's the case, maybe you can check SolidWorks documentation to see if there is any way to offload your CPU and use your GPU to carry out complex calculation. I never use SolidWorks before so I don't have any idea, but I believe they do. Whether it needs Quadro or FirePro to work is purely up to the SolidWorks, but by theory, a consumer GPU should be able to carry out the complex calculation.

 

CAD software, when you are in design phase, doesn't care if you use CPU or GPU because there's no performance uplift between them. Some 3D CAD software however can take advantage of GPU when you rotate or move around a complex 3D models in design phase, which offload your CPU a little.

 

But with that said, This purely depends on the software and how well the software utilise your hardware.

I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

 

I apologies if my comments or post offends you in any way, or if my rage got a little too far. I'll try my best to make my post as non-offensive as much as possible.

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6 hours ago, generic000 said:

Makes sense. I think I'll go that route. But I'll leave the upgraded power supply in there. I hate cheap, low power, OEM supplies.

If you try to upgrade in the future then sure, upgradind the power supply makes sense but if your only gonna use that i5 with no dedicated GPU I would not change the PSU. OEMs psu are good enough for that and way more relaible than the weird cheap chinese psu u see on eBay. I actually have a Dell optiplex with the same cpu and the motherboard does not have a standard 24 pin connector D:

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Sooooo, funny story. I figured CAD software wouldn't really care about graphics cards all that much (engineering CAD, not blender modeling). Apparently Fusion360 does not appreciate me trying to run it on my integrated GPU. There's a banner at the top saying my hardware is causing fusion to run slower, even though I meet the system requirements (the best I can tell, they are pretty vague).

 

I guess I'll have to pull the rx570 out of my core 2 quad machine (which the kids have taken over as their gaming rig) and try it in the Dell. They won't miss those frames in their Lego games ;). I'll put one of the HD 4850s back in the old PC. I wasn't going to do this originally, since the old PC has become the gaming PC.

 

One other question. The Dell has a 4G and a 8G sick of RAM. Is that a problem with a 4th gen i5 era PC? I know back in the day you almost wanted matched pairs for RAM, is that still a thing? Is it worth it to try to track down 2 matching sticks of DDR3.

 

Thanks for all the good info.

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9 hours ago, generic000 said:

One other question. The Dell has a 4G and a 8G sick of RAM. Is that a problem with a 4th gen i5 era PC? I know back in the day you almost wanted matched pairs for RAM, is that still a thing? Is it worth it to try to track down 2 matching sticks of DDR3.

 

Thanks for all the good info.

It still is as far as same RAM Modules sizes. 12GB only makes sense with Triple Channel Memory Setups. Yours only has Dual Channel so matching sizes will change it from Single to Dual...

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9 hours ago, whm1974 said:

It still is as far as same RAM Modules sizes. 12GB only makes sense with Triple Channel Memory Setups. Yours only has Dual Channel so matching sizes will change it from Single to Dual...

So right now it's 12GB of single channel RAM? Another stupid question, how big of a performance difference is there between single and dual channel? Could I just buy another 8GB stick of RAM that's the same speed as the 8GB sick that's in there now? Do I also need to match brand/series/some other spec?

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4 minutes ago, generic000 said:

So right now it's 12GB of single channel RAM? Another stupid question, how big of a performance difference is there between single and dual channel? Could I just buy another 8GB stick of RAM that's the same speed as the 8GB sick that's in there now? Do I also need to match brand/series/some other spec?

No it is normally Dual, but since yours is mismatched with 4GB and 8GB Modules, it will be set up in Single Channel. AFAIK replacing the smaller Module with an 8GB one will set it correctly.

 

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