is shared graphics slower than a dedicated graphics card?

[BenBeazley]

I'm purchasing a computer and i've narrowed it down to a few possibilities. i think 1 is better than the others but it has AMD Radeon™ Shared Graphics. I searched it up and found out that it means the RAM for the GPU and CPU is shared which shouldn't be a problem because the laptop comes with 16 GB RAM. But is the shared graphics slower? I don't care if it's only a slight difference but i would like to know if it as good as a dedicated graphics card can anyone help?


the other laptops i would like to choose from have AMD Radeon r7, r5 and r6 graphics cards, how would those compare to the shared one?

i've found another good laptop with dedicated graphics memory
http/www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/acer-acer-aspire-e-17-3-laptop-black-quad-core-amd-a10-8700p-1tb-hdd-8gb-ram-windows-10-nx-mymaa-002/10423843.aspx?path=a54ba683aba171a1063460a5c5af3928en02
but it doesn't mention which graphics card it has, can anyone point me to where i could find this.

 

[WyomingKnott]

In my not very experienced opinion, dedicated graphics will be faster. It will have its own graphics-optimized memory, and be faster than onboard graphics. On the other hand, it will cost you more and run down your battery sooner. And the decision you make when you buy is almost always final; the graphics is soldered onto the motherboard and cannot be replaced.

 

[jaguarskx]

To put it more precisely, dedicated graphics is more powerful than integrated and will provide better performance for games... unless you are comparing integrated graphics to a rather old dedicate graphics chip. For example, the Intel HD 620 integrated graphics core in the recently released 7th generation Kaby Lake Intel CPU family is considered to be more powerful than the nVidia GT 550m which was considered to be a pretty good mainstream graphics chip back in 2011.

Naturally, the performance of integrated graphics also differ from each other. In the past (meaning before 2011), people naturally assumed all AMD integrated graphics are better than Intel integrated graphics, and they would be correct. However, times have changed, Intel now has graphic cores that are more powerful than some of AMD's graphic core. But technically speaking, Intel can currently claim they have the most powerful integrated graphic cores; easily surpassing what AMD's integrated graphics can achieve. Unfortunately, that CPU that has those Intel graphics cores (Intel Iris Pro Graphics 580 and 6200 which are at least equal to the nVidia 940m) are in pretty expensive CPUs which costs at least $289 and are not found in any budget laptop.


Exactly what AMD APU model are you looking at? The A8-6410 / A8-7410 are low budget quad core AMD APUs with the Radeon R5 (Beema / Carrizo) integrated graphics core. It is less powerful than Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics core there were in Intel's 3rd generation Ivy Bridge CPUs that came out in 2012. That means it is a lot less powerful than the Intel HD 620 which generally considered more powerful than the nVidia 920m and AMD's budget R7 M460 dedicated graphics chip.

 

[JeffDaemon]

Another thing to consider is while amd APUs tend to be better then Intels iGPU graphics, a weak cooling solution seen in cheap laptops will be overwhelmed by the amount of heat an amd APU generates doing both cpu and gpu task quickly losing that edge. If you are considering any gaming on a laptop, you will save yourself alot of headache with an laptop that uses a geforce chip. Anything 700, 800, or 900 that is x40 or above should be a good start.