More and more people are gaming, but the majority of them are casual players. Those gamers make less demands on image quality and frame rates, and will not want to invest in a state of the art video card. What can you expect if you have to make do with the processor's built-in video card? Is an external entry-level model worthwhile? That's what we tell you in this article.

Although 'serious' gamers often talk amicably about integrated graphics, i.e. the graphics card that is built-in in CPUs, these iGPUs can be found in an enormous number of desktops and laptops. They are located in more PCs than all the separate video cards combined. As a young gamer without money, it is likely that you will start your gaming adventure on your parents' computer or on an old PC of an acquaintance or family. Such office buses are rarely equipped with a separate video card and often cannot be equipped with a more powerful external one due to a lack of the required PCIe slot and/or power connections. If a separate card is already present, it will seldom be a model that can conjure up imaginative 3D images on the screen.