Intel Integrated Graphics

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
October 10, 2020
3 replies
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After purchasing a new Dell Precision 3640 but haven't received it yet. I noticed that it has only Intel Integrated Graphics and just wondering is this good enough for Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator or do I need a dedicated graphics card to run things smoothly. Thanks

Performance

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Conrad_C

Community Expert

Those applications work fine with integrated graphics. Part of the reason is that most laptops only have integrated graphics, like mine.

Adobe applications can perform better with discrete graphics, but you might not notice the difference unless you:

Work with very large documents
Attach multiple large HiDPI displays
Start using pro video editing applications

One factor that affects this is the amount of RAM. Integrated graphics takes its memory from the system, so the more RAM you ordered for your new Dell, the more memory will be available to integrated graphics and the better it will work, especially if you keep multiple Adobe applications open at the same time.

It looks like the Dell Precision 3640 is a minitower desktop computer. If it is possible to open it up and add a discrete graphics card to it later, then you have that option in the future if it becomes necessary. But if you are currently going to use it with a single display for average projects in Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator you should be OK.

jbohan1Author

Known Participant

Thanks very much, Conrad_C. I ordered it with 64GB 4X16GB DDR4 2666MHz or 2933MHz (2933MHz requires Intel Core i7 or above) UDIMM Non-ECC Memory. I sometimes work with large documents, but I missed the bit about graphics when ordering.

D Fosse

Community Expert

You can buy a video card later. Open the box and plug it in here. This is the motherboard of the Precision 3640 (found the image on Dell support):

BTW I see there are two M.2 ports here for PCIe SSD drives. That's excellent. You probably get one installed as your system drive - but PCIe M.2 drives are extremely fast and you should get another one in time. That should give you lots of ultra-fast disk space for the Photoshop scratch disk, which can have large impact on PS performance when working with large files.