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And speaking of dedicated parts: a dedicated graphics core is separate from the northbridge, and has its own video memory. This means it doesn’t siphon off the system RAM, although some parts (typically lower end) do dynamically share from system RAM as needed, though only when it would improve performance (and you’ll never see them do so in regular Windows operation, only during gaming).

Dedicated graphics parts will always outperform integrated parts, albeit in varying degrees. If you’re going to game on your system, you’ll need one of these.

The problem with dedicated parts is that they drive up the cost of the notebook, can increase the temperature (as they need to be cooled by themselves), and reduce the battery life. Additionally, due to the power draw and cooling issues, dedicated parts seldom find themselves in ultraportable notebooks.