Graphics card in laptop

[damaan]

Again some advice please guys. I want to buy a new laptop and I've noticed some come with graphic cards. Is a graphics card really necesssary in a laptop? I will be using it for work purposes and not for gaming. I've also read that graphic cards tend to drain the battery power - is this true? Finally if a graphics card is necessary, what is a good one? Do I need a NVIDIA ge-force? or is a simple Intel Graphics Media Accelerator good enough for my needs?
Thanks as always!:Cheers:

 

[Utopie]

Ofcourse you need a GPU, lol. I wouldn't worry about it mate as all laptops come pre-installed with one onboard (not a card like desktop PCs), and if you're not bothered about graphics, then I wouldn't bother worrying about what GPU it has.

I would personally preference an Ati, Nvidia, and then Intel onboard graphics, in that order, but it really doesn't matter which as any of them will do your non graphical work stuff and the usual like play dvd's, videos...

So in short, it just isn't a concern in your case, just focus your purchase on other fators like RAM, processor, HD space, price, whatever you think you will gain the most benefit for your work needs. People buying laptops rarely concern themselves with its graphical capabilities unless they are buying a specialist gaming laptop which cost upwards of £1000 anyway...

 

[oneman]

If you are only using it for work then don't worry about a gfx card. All the on-board ones these days are resonable, support Aero interface in W7 and support hardware HD playback. Plus they will be less of a drain on the battery and run cooler.

 

[damaan]

Thanks for the replies. I've noticed that some laptops come with a small gfx card e.g. ATI HD 5470 512 MB. Is this better to have this kind of gfx card than say a laptop that has an Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator HD with graphics memory of 1,694 MB - which seems to be the norm for a lot of new laptops?
Thanks.:Cheers:

 

[oneman]

Intel GMA is shared memory with system RAM. 1.7GB is the max it can use but there is no need to allocated it that.