Discrete Fail: Why Do so Few PCs Feature Graphics Cards?
Discrete Fail: Why Do so Few PCs Feature Graphics Cards?
Posted 02/08/2010 at 1:45pm
| by Gordon Mah Ung
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Despite all the hype over the GPU's prowess, the inventory of retail PCs show consumers aren't buying it
The GPU might be hailed as the new heir to the computing throne, but a stroll through any big-box PC retailer doesn’t bear that out—very few PCs under $900 even have discrete graphics cards. Instead, in the vast majority of machines for sale, the lowly, spat-upon integrated graphics rule the roost.
According to John Karabian, a product manager with No. 2 PC maker Acer, for the average consumer, it’s still just about the big three: CPU, RAM, and hard drive: “They know a 3.2GHz Core i7 is going to be slower than a 3.33GHz Core i7, 4GB is better than 2GB, and 1TB is better than 500GB.” The graphics card, Karabian said, is just something most consumers don’t think about, and if they do, it’s in a negative way. “The perception, it seems, in the marketplace, is that discrete graphics are only for gamers,” said Karabian.
Randy Copeland, president of Velocity Micro, agreed that the average consumer couldn’t care less about graphics in today’s market. Although Velocity Micro’s PCs are above the mainstream $900 PC, and all include graphics cards, he said it is difficult to market the benefits of the GPU to consumers.
“They don’t get the value of that graphics card unless there is a blue shirt there walking them through it,” Copeland said. “You don’t have a whole lot of space to sell someone a computer. It’s limited to the four or five bullet points [on the price tag], and that’s your sales pitch.”
Sub-$1,000 PCs, like this HP Pavilion, rarely feature discrete graphics.
Now, try to educate someone on the differences in the number of texture and stream processors in a GPU, and the memory bandwidth of a videocard.
Karabian agreed, saying the abbreviated life cycle of graphics cards makes it even more confusing.
“You really have to delve deep to find out why a Radeon HD 4870 is not as fast as a Radeon HD 5870 or a GeForce GTX 285. That’s a challenging prospect, and then you’re back to, ‘Oh, it’s only for gamers,’ ” according to Karabian.
Analyst Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research, said the situation is unfortunate because PCs, and especially graphics, offer particularly good value for the money.
“If a retailer can sell the benefits of more memory and clock speed of the CPU, then he/she can certainly sell the benefits of better graphics. However, it’s been pretty well established that higher CPU clocks don’t deliver as much bang for the buck as a more powerful GPU for anything that involves pixels. And, sadly, the applications aren’t making much use of the multicore CPUs being shipped today,” he said.
Peddie said discrete graphics will only become a harder sell as Intel and AMD release their respective lines of CPUs with integrated graphics cores. These chips have enough graphics power to capture all of the midrange PCs, as well as to eat into the low-end $100 GPU market. Integrated graphics accounted for 72 percent of PC sales in 2009, according to Peddie. That’s up from 68 percent just the year before.
“The problem is the consumer hasn’t been properly educated about the benefits of discrete graphics,” Peddie said. “Had Intel delivered Larrabee, it would have helped overcome that ignorance. But today, all the average consumer seems to know about discrete graphics is that they’re good for games. GPU compute for color correction, transcoding, video smoothing, and encryption isn’t being explained to the consumer the way I think it should be, so purchase decisions are made on price and not features.”
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DanDog
February 16, 2010 at 9:00am
I bought a $650' ish PC back in 2007, with an integrated graphics chip. I planned to upgrade to a discrete graphics card, but then the Recession hit. Now, in 2010, I'm at last going to buy a real GPU. Look out Modern Warefare 2, here I come!
Grandpa
February 16, 2010 at 12:01am
As a former power user and now Wal-Mart worker, I think I know why people buy under-powered, onboard video computers. Many people buy xboxes and cut corners on their internet computer. $1300 total looks alot better than 3 grand or more when you are making Wal-Mart type wages. Until Americans start voting with their empty pockets in mind instead of their "values" and "no taxes for the rich" crap, this trend will only continue. Have you noticed a huge increase in smartphone sales? They are the new computer for Wal-Mart type wage earners. Look for sales of computers to start tapering off as the next unexplained trend.
davidflory
February 12, 2010 at 9:48am
It seems many of you here have a believe that you are the average user (this is normal for you) but that is not the case. The average user is that person who keeps asking you to fix their PC or show how to do something on it. Most users of computers know just enough to get their email, surf the web, view the digital pictures, run MS Office, maybe remove the red eye from some of their pics, and watch a dvd or two. A discrete GPU will do very little to improve performance or quality of these actions. If you don't believe me fellow techies - go to your local Best Buy or large computer store and listen (a skill we techies need to work on) to what people are asking the sales reps or ask them what they want to do on their PCs. You will then be educated in the realm of low- to mid- range PC marketing.
nekollx
February 12, 2010 at 9:57am
except even a $50 card will make that dvd playback smoother, let you run Aero and generally make things nicer. And as GPU Compute takes off eventually MS office with be GPU powered
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Asabrand
February 10, 2010 at 12:15pm
It all comes down to two questions:
1. What am I going to be doing with this system?
2. How much do I want to spend on this system?If a person is going to be running high end games, or working with graphics intensive projects, then there is a reason to spend the extra cash for a system with a discrete graphics card. However, the average consumer does not fall into either of those two groups and integrated graphics is sufficient for any application they wish to run.
So in the end, discrete graphics cards are for hardcore gamers and high-end users, not the average consumer.
ubuwalker31
February 10, 2010 at 4:35pm
In addition to marketing video cards to gamers, market it to the iPhone / Mp3 player crowd: Want to watch movies on your iPod, but it takes 2 hours to convert it to a format that your iPod can play? Just use this GPU transcoder, and it will be done in 10 minutes.
nekollx
February 10, 2010 at 12:22pm
until GPU compute hits it's stride
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
JonPhillips
February 08, 2010 at 5:52pm
nHereGo: First off, thanks for the kudos on our website. As for your criticism, I'll only say that the purpose of the story was to report on a trend, not to explain GPU compute (which is a fascinating subject, by the way, especially with respect to scientific modeling). Also, please keep in mind that the article was on low- and mid-end consumer machines, not workstations that might actually benefit from GPU compute ... for this reason, the GPU compute angle bears less relevance to the story.
That is, unless Photoshop Elements hooks into CUDA or OpenCL! ;-)
nekollx
February 08, 2010 at 6:03pm
well i do know photshop (full) cs4 does use GPU power, i sure it will come to Elements soon enough if not here already
now if only Windows Media Player used GPUs to render video, it's still CPU bound right?
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Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
nHeroGo
February 09, 2010 at 7:00am
The article mention 2 or 3 times that consumers are not properly educated.
The article mention 2 or 3 times that the general impression is that GPU is only for gamers.
The article contains approximately 608 words but only the last sentence contains 10 words "GPU compute for color correction, transcoding, video smoothing, and encryption" what it is all about.
The article is therefore a 1.67% hit and a 98.3% miss.
Bummer. I apologize for being so harsh.
I love this website by the way.
UPDATED: @JonPhillips - Yes, you are right. The article was about not selling the GPU-argument. I flipped the wrong switch in my head half way through the article as I expected the GPU-argument to be the punch line or part of the solution to the suggested problem - education.
gendoikari1
February 08, 2010 at 4:48pm
I can't help but laugh when I see "Intel GMA" in a parts list. This is why more people should learn how to build a computer.
Honorary Family Member:
Phenom II x4 925 2.8 GHz
XFX Radeon HD 5870
8GB G.Skill DDR2-800 RAM
ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe
Seagate Barracuda 750GB HDD
COMMANDER_COOK
February 08, 2010 at 2:03pm
When I'm choosing a part or laptop, I never find all the info I want.
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Jeffredo
February 08, 2010 at 1:56pm
Gamers are a minority. Most people use their PCs for nothing more than internet surfing, digital photography, music, etc... You don't need a discrete graphics card for those things.
nekollx
February 08, 2010 at 2:35pm
but even a $50 card would make video playback so much soomther, and if they use photoshop cs4....
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
stradric
February 09, 2010 at 6:43am
There are simply way more gamers than photoshop gurus. Not only that, but photoshop CS4 is ridiculously expensive.
Let's face it. A modern video card is mostly for games. Most apps don't support GPU computing anyway.
aviaggio
February 08, 2010 at 7:48pm
Not necessarily. Almost all of the IGPs made in the last 2 years will easily decode HD streams. And I think he was talking about quick and dirty photo editing using whatever bundled software comes with your digital camera or printer, not Photoshop work.
Bottom line is these days there isn't much of a need for a full graphics card if you're not gaming.
nekollx
February 09, 2010 at 11:24am
but as GPU compute takes off ANY dedicated GPU will help imensly, even the $50 one
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
zepontiff
February 08, 2010 at 1:35pm
They haven't been properly edumacated about the benefits of discrete graphics either. Most people in the "mainstream" are buying their crap from places like Best Buy which has morons selling anything.
Lueke2006
February 08, 2010 at 2:37pm
i also agree, most people now dont do any research before they buy a computer, they just go to Best Buy and pick the shiniest cheapest computer.
mothrpe
February 08, 2010 at 7:33pm
You can get a good pc for an excellent price at best buy, provided you don't mind decrapifying it and adding a gpu. I got a dual core + monitor bundle awhile back, and cash vs. performance it was great. Couldn't find a better deal at the time.
jonahkirk
February 08, 2010 at 2:55pm
Yah, why don't they make the really high-end computers cheaper and shinier?
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