Build your computer: discover the pros and cons of its integrated integrated cards
Understanding what the pros and cons of your integrated (on-board) card on your motherboard is important for building your computer. It will make you wise in choosing your own components that meet your own needs. On-board cards, which means integrating the sound, LAN, modem, video card and other peripheral components on your motherboard.
During the early years, the motherboard used many connections and add-on cards. This causes too much confusion for the computer builder. Today it’s not a problem anymore because most add-on cards are now integrated into the motherboard.
Therefore, the main advantages of integrated cards is that they will make it much easier for you to build your computer due to fewer connections. You can also save money by not buying another card for your system.
Let’s talk about the cons of integrated cards. Integrated cards cannot be repaired or upgraded because they are fixed. But this is not a problem, you don’t need to buy the whole board if any of the onboard cards get damaged. Simply disable it in the CMOS settings and replace the faulty integrated card with an add-on card. The same thing you do when you plan to upgrade any of your integrated cards in the future. Some newer motherboards will automatically disable the integrated card when you install your new add-on card.
In conclusion, if your computing application is just for simple office work, I suggest you buy a motherboard that supports many integrated cards. However, if your application is more graphical, buy a separate video card, most likely PCI-E. The built-in video card dramatically affects your graphics performance because it took a part of your main memory and it is shared on your data bus. Therefore, it produces slower graphics output.
