alt Hacker NewsA 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.
Replies
iancmceachern • today at 7:58 AM
For me it's a necessity to run the software I need to do my work (CAD design)
silon42 • today at 9:19 AM
Same here... I do not wish for a laptop with >65W USB-C power requirements.
trinsic2 • today at 7:00 AM
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.
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.