What Video card would you recommend for general work PC

Having just built a new PC 8700k, 16gb Ram and evo 970 M.2 drive, I am using the onboard video card, the reason being that I don't play games but use the PC as a general productivity tool.

I use it for ripping Blu-ray, and desktop publishing with very little photo editing and general office work so nothing too demanding especially on the video side. I don't think I'm missing out on anything by not having a dedicated video card, do you?

Onboard Intel UHD Graphics 630 is rated (by Intel) for 4K 4096x2304x24@60Hz. Can decode/playback 30fps video H.264 and H.265 etc. Not the best (and it can run a little warm) but more than enough for general WinOS tasks and office and photoshop and youtube/netflix sorts of stuff.

But in reality it has dismal benchmarks for any heavy 3D at 4K, expect something like maybe 10fps~15fps on DX11 and even less on DX12. Benchmarks are synthetic, of course, some games do much better and some do much worse. It might be able to sustain 30fps~60fps 3D at 1080p.

If you feel your iGPU is doing the job well enough and you're not feeling any 3D pain then no need to upgrade at all, lacking expensive (and unused) GPU hardware is no crime, lol. Not worth upgrading until/unless you notice lack of oomph is costing you real productivity.

R7-290 or GT710/GTX1030 are somewhat better than your iGPU (for 3D gaming) but not better enough to be really worth buying. R7-370 or GTX1050Ti are noticeably better, but for just a little more it might be worth buying R9-380 or GTX1060 (especially if you can find anything on sale). Better cards quickly get costly because they're desirable for gaming and mining. It might be worth waiting for Boxing Day sales or even waiting for the next new NVIDIA/AMD launch to drive existing GPU prices down a rung on the price ladder.

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Originally Posted by Korth

Onboard Intel UHD Graphics 630 is rated (by Intel) for 4K 4096x2304x24@60Hz. Can decode/playback 30fps video H.264 and H.265 etc. Not the best (and it can run a little warm) but more than enough for general WinOS tasks and office and photoshop and youtube/netflix sorts of stuff.

But in reality it has dismal benchmarks for any heavy 3D at 4K, expect something like maybe 10fps~15fps on DX11 and even less on DX12. Benchmarks are synthetic, of course, some games do much better and some do much worse. It might be able to sustain 30fps~60fps 3D at 1080p.

If you feel your iGPU is doing the job well enough and you're not feeling any 3D pain then no need to upgrade at all, lacking expensive (and unused) GPU hardware is no crime, lol. Not worth upgrading until/unless you notice lack of oomph is costing you real productivity.

R7-290 or GT710/GTX1030 are somewhat better than your iGPU (for 3D gaming) but not better enough to be really worth buying. R7-370 or GTX1050Ti are noticeably better, but for just a little more it might be worth buying R9-380 or GTX1060 (especially if you can find anything on sale). Better cards quickly get costly because they're desirable for gaming and mining. It might be worth waiting for Boxing Day sales or even waiting for the next new NVIDIA/AMD launch to drive existing GPU prices down a rung on the price ladder.

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Thanks, I think I'll keep it as is as you say it will be more than enough for what I'm doing, cheers.