I suppose the cheapest, bottom of the barrel, $30 video card might not outperform the biggest and baddest integrated graphics card, but 95% of the time you are absolutely right.  Integrated graphics are usually the way to go if you are concerned about power or price, but they rarely impress with their performance.

In this case, the graphics card you've linked to is based on one of ATI's latest chipsets, so you are getting a lot of power there even on the cheaper cards.  On the other hand, the motherboard you linked to with integrated graphics doesn't say which video chipset it is based on, so it is likely a low-end, cheap one.  If it was something decent, you'd think they'd brag about it.

So, with the hardware you've linked to, I'd put good money on the discrete video card performing substantially better.  Leaps and bounds better.  You might not notice if you're just reading email and word docs, but who does that anymore?  The first time you happen upon a flash video, watch a movie, edit a photo, play a game, etc... you'll get your extra 30% worth.

Christer wrote on Jun 4^th, 2010 at 3:41am:

The 4xxx series is previous generation as you mentioned.  It will still do just fine for videos and photos.  There are some big benefits in the new generation in both performance and power savings, but the previous generation would probably be adequate for casual use.

Christer wrote on Jun 4^th, 2010 at 3:41am:

I agree.  The integrated graphics chip looked to have 128MB of memory, so the performance difference will be significant in games and benchmarks.

Sounds like it is all coming down to how the computer will be used.