AMD integrated graphics vs graphics cards?

[Reclan Anderson]

I have an AMD A8-6600K, and I want to know if buying, say, a $100 graphics card would be an upgrade.

How good are the graphics on this APU?

 

[AMD Radeon]

buying gpu for APU is pointless
stick with integrated or buy a new rig

 

[hang-the-9]

I have an AMD A8-6600K, and I want to know if buying, say, a $100 graphics card would be an upgrade.

How good are the graphics on this APU?

Yes it would be an upgrade, even a $60 card would be.

The video card in the A8 with the CPU is about the level of a 4-5 yr old mid range gaming card combined with a Intel Q6660 or a Phenom.

 

[jaguarskx]

The answer is yes.

The most powerful graphics core in the Richland generation APU is the Radeon HD 8650D. However, it is only comparable to a discrete Radeon HD 6670 DDR3 GPU. Note that the DDR5 version of the HD 6670 is about 33% more powerful than the DDR3 version. Both cards sold for less than $100 when they were new.

 

[meat_loaf]

I have an AMD A8-6600K, and I want to know if buying, say, a $100 graphics card would be an upgrade.

How good are the graphics on this APU?

The graphics on your APU is low-end performance. Even if you get a 6670D and crossfire with it, you will see some performance but your APU will bottleneck the card because DDR3 vs DDR5 on a dedicated GPU will always outperform. The mid end APUs are the A10k because they come with newer models and some of them R7.

If you really want to increase your performance in gaming I would scrap the APU graphics and just go straight to a dedicated card like R9 270 or higher model ones. At least that way you will have no bottlenecks since A8 is comparable to a FX 4300 cpu.

But for you with an APU there are only 2 options ahead:
1. Either buy a low end dedicated card like 6670D and crossfire that with iGPU and get the increase in performance or,

2. Buy a dedicated card and scrap the iGPU which gives you more performance than crossfire.

Depending on how you want and budget wise, option 2 is optimal.