I've dedicated the better part of the last decade to covering graphics cards.New launches, new features, new capabilities.Disappointments and amazing developments.
Ever-rising prices, worse in 2026 than we've ever seen them.But the thing is, GPUs have never been less essential than they are now, at least for everyday users.You can have a perfectly good PC without spending a penny on a GPU.
Surely, that makes the whole endeavor a lot cheaper? Yeah, about that...Integrated graphics aren't a joke anymore Manufacturers are making discrete GPUs optional Close It feels like yesterday that integrated graphics were widely regarded as an absolute joke.As in, just about good enough for an office PC that's used for Excel, but no use for just about everything else.
Yeah, those times are long gone.We're living in the GPU-less era now.While the best graphics cards are now obviously better than ever, so are their integrated counterparts.
Just look at what AMD and Intel are doing these days.AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (still a mouthful) comes with Radeon 8060S integrated graphics, packing 40 compute units.That's better than some discrete GPUs from not too long ago.
Intel's no slouch, either.Its Core Ultra X9 388H features an Arc B390 GPU with 12 Xe3 cores, bringing some seriously impressive graphics capabilities to laptops.Both AMD and Intel are also prominent in gaming handhelds, and even cheaper APUs and SoCs can put out good performance.
Let's not forget about Nvidia's RTX Spark.The new platform combines a Grace CPU with a Blackwell RTX GPU on a single superchip, complete with up to 6,144 CUDA cores and 128GB of unified memory.Why would you even bother with discrete GPUs when this is available? These processors can actually run demanding games I don't just mean Minecraft I've had many laptops in the last two decades, and the ones that came with integrated graphics were always ...
well, pretty mid.They were fine for games like Stardew Valley or maybe even some chill Minecraft or Terraria, but little else.I'd have never tried to play anything intense on these laptops, as they'd probably go up in flames the moment I attempted to launch an AAA game.
These days, 1080p gaming is possible even without a GPU across a wide variety of games, although you'll have to be generous with lowering the settings (depending on the title).Benchmarks show the Radeon 8060S iGPU running Battlefield 6 at over 80 fps, and Cyberpunk 2077 at over 60 fps.If you told me five years ago that this would be the case, I don't know that I'd have believed you.
The GPU didn't disappear, you're paying for it somewhere else Powerful integrated graphics need expensive memory So, are GPUs entirely obsolete now? Can you just get a laptop or a mini PC and game to your heart's content with no restrictions, all the while saving thousands of dollars? Well, no.Definitely not.A discrete GPU is still required for any serious gaming (as well as a million other tasks), but beyond that, it's not exactly a lot cheaper.
Beyond the obvious state of RAM-pocalypse we've been in for over a year now (which I'll also dig into below), the mere fact that you're buying a powerful chip still adds some dollars to the final price tag of your device.These impressive iGPUs need a lot of resources to deliver that kind of performance, and those resources obviously aren't free.Unlike discrete GPUs, which come with their own VRAM, iGPUs share system memory with the CPU.
That memory needs to be fast enough to keep up, too, which is one more reason why soldered RAM is so common.The aforementioned Ryzen AI Max+ 395 uses a 256-bit LPDDR5X-8000 memory interface, for instance.That stuff isn't cheap to implement.
There's also the matter of power and cooling.These laptops and mini PCs, with their iGPUs, are made for small form factors, so you're not going to see a massive AIO sticking out of the device, but implementing solid cooling in such a tiny device is no small feat.The price of going GPU-less is still ridiculous That's just how it is right now Building your own PC without a GPU will save you some money, but it'll still be expensive, because is expensive in tech now.
You're saving a few hundred dollars (depending on the type of GPU you'd be going for), but you'll still spend a fortune on the RAM and the SSD regardless.Buying a prebuilt, a laptop, or a mini PC can help offset some of that cost, to an extent.Manufacturers haven't fully passed down the rising cost of components to the customers, so if you buy a GPU-less device that's been built by someone else, you might find some savings in that.
But honestly, any kind of PC-adjacent shopping trip is going to be pricey right now.Dedicated GPUs aren't going anywhere just yet Except AI, that is Fortunately, discrete GPUs aren't going anywhere.While iGPUs have come a long way in the last decade and they can now easily replace a discrete GPU for people who don't do any intense gaming (and even those who sometimes do), they're nowhere near on the level of even a midrange GPU from the current generation.
If you want performance, you're getting a dedicated graphics card, period.The graphics card is becoming a choice, not a requirement Although I personally wouldn't want to buy a PC without a GPU right now, I'm not ignoring the merits and the possibilities here.The best part of it all is, I think, the ease of getting a semi-decent PC.
It's one less spec for people to think about, and theoretically, one less spec to pay for.In reality, it's not quite that simple.Related Nvidia quietly moved the legendary GTX 1080 Ti and 4 other classic GPUs to legacy status 5 iconic Nvidia GPUs you must replace now that official driver support is dead Posts 6 By Monica J.
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