Comparing two Dell XPS 15s: Integrated graphics vs GeForce GTX 960 - do I need the dedicated graphics card for my purposes?

[SYAS2016]

Hi All,

I'm thinking of buying one of the two Dell XPS 15's:

https/www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/-hxy5m/version.asp
or
https/www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/consumer-nb-xps-15-black-intel-core-i7-6700hq-16gb-512gb-ssd-nvidia-g-9550-8090/version.asp

The only real difference is the graphics card, as they are within £50 of each other. My question is, for the purpose of connecting the laptop to two monitors, how necessary (or not) is the quality of the graphics card? I don't intend to play any games on this laptop, I'm just going to be connecting it to two Dell monitors (1 via HDMI, 1 via MiniDisplay) and doing a lot of heavy Excel and PowerPoint work.

The Integrated Graphics one is Windows 10 Pro, whereas the one with the Dedicated Graphics card is ("only") Windows 10 - not sure there is any real difference for me, for my purposes, would you think? The Integrated one is also non-touch (i.e. better battery life) while the dedicated one is touchscreen.

The key question for me is: how important is the graphics card for the purpose of having no lag when connecting the laptop to two monitors, bearing in mind I won't be playing games on the laptop, its purely for business use / browsing the internet.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Scottray]

For Excel and PowerPoint, Intel integrated graphics is perfectly fine for driving 2 monitors and the laptop display. More important is an i7 CPU, 16 GB ram and an SSD drive, which both laptops have. Touch display is up to you - depends on how you like to interact with your laptop. I'm using a similarly equipped Dell E7470 right now driving two 24 in, 1080p monitors - no issues. A dedicated GPU is basically a necessity for gaming and some video rendering tasks.

 

[drbones8472]

The biggest issue the 960 version will have is that battery wont last as ling with it. The good news though is that by having a dedicated graphics card you actually get to use all of your CPU. By using integrated graphics you loose about 10% of your CPU power. Another good thing about using dedicated graphics is that any video or anything you stream while in a presentation lets say, will not lag or have a bad frame rate. Personally I would rather have the 960 version. But I can completely understand why you wouldn't want it. Its not necessary to have the 960 at all, but if the only thing it hurts by having it is how long the battery will last. I'd rather have it.