Ditto most of what jimbo45 said. If the computer's motherboard has the built-in video/graphics adapter, whether separate or part of the CPU, one doesn't absolutely need an Add-in card whether PCI, AGP or PCIe X16. Some programs may perform better with an Add-in, or as in the case of my 2 Win10 Insider Preview computers, an Add-in card is necessary as the built-in adapter is no longer supported/drivers not available.
Ugghh..... @alkaufmann wasn't asking whether he needs a GPU or not. He was asking if a separate graphics card was needed or not. You see, @bro67, there are some processors now called APU's. These APU's have both a CPU and a GPU in the same chip and the motherboard will contain the video ports that are driven by the APU without a separate being needed. alkaufmann's Intel 4770K processor is an APU. In addition to the CPU, it has an Intel HD 4600 GPU built in. So the correct answer to alkaufmann's question is that as long as he only needs light duty graphics then a separate graphics card is not required.
Anything more than the most basic of games, however, and the GPU that is built into the APU will likely not provide satisfactory performance, and alkaufmann will want to use a separate graphics card.
Hi there
If you want to drive more than 2 monitors you'll need a separate graphics card -- people for example who run say Stock trading software often want several screens for example trading stocks in real time and say Bloomberg TV or other financial TV program-- you don't need mega high performance graphics for this but you'll need graphics card capable of driving independent monitors -- 2 monitors can usually be handled easily enough with on board graphics for most typical applications.
Cheers
jimbo
I am looking at a high end ASUS motherboard the Maximus Hero XI that has both an HDMI and a Display port but I still need to download the manual to make sure both ports can be used at the same time. If needed, I can always buy a new graphics card at a later time.
Thanks for all the replies.
Ak
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