Do You Need a Graphics Card for Minecraft?

“Do you need a graphics card for Minecraft?” refers to whether you need a DEDICATED graphics card. In other words, is an integrated graphics card good enough for Minecraft?

The simple answer to the question is, No! You DO NOT need a dedicated graphics card for Minecraft to work. Minecraft isn’t very demanding; therefore, even a potato PC with a decent integrated GPU should suffice for Minecraft.

However, you will undoubtedly need a sound-dedicated graphics card when playing at max settings, high resolution, draw distance, and using graphics-enhancing mods.

In the following text, I will discuss whether you need a graphics card for Minecraft by looking at the system requirements, game testing, and benchmark comparisons.

Also Read: Minecraft PC Build Guide

For Starters: What is the Difference Between Integrated vs. Dedicated GPU?

People often confuse the fact that if they do not have a standalone graphics card installed on their motherboard, they do not have a GPU.

That is hardly the case. All PCs require a graphics card to display stuff on the screen. No GPU means no display.

The question concerns whether you need a dedicated (standalone) or is integrated (built into the CPU) is sufficient for your running tasks.

Integrated GPUs include Intel HD, Intel UHD series graphics, and AMD Vega series GPUs.

The integrated graphics card are far weaker than NVIDIA’s and AMD’s dedicated GPUs. The table below explains this further:

• Scores are taken from G3D Benchmark.

You can see from the table above that even the best-integrated GPU, the AMD Vega 8, as found on the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, is far weaker compared to the High-End NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti (2708 vs. 26,677 points).

Even some of the cheapest and entry-level dedicated GPUs, such as the AMD RX 550, perform better than the current best iGPU, i.e., the Vega 8.

With the established performance difference between an iGPU and a dedicated GPU, we will gauge whether Minecraft needs a dedicated GPU or if the integrated GPU would suffice.

Also Read: Is Integrated Graphics Card Good Enough?

Integrated or Dedicated GPU for Minecraft

To check whether an integrated GPU is sufficient for Minecraft or if you need a separate dedicated graphics card, we need to look at some case studies.

People have even played this game on almost every GPU possible ranging from the weaker Intel UHD 610 as well as the super expensive RTX 3090/

Here are the results:

Case Study: iGPU Intel UHD 610 (G3D Mark Score 732)

A user on Youtube tested Minecraft on one of the weakest integrated GPUs available, i.e., the Intel UHD 610 and an entry-level Intel Pentium Gold G5400 GPU.

On “Fast” graphics settings and the eight chunks of Render Distance, he achieved frames per second well above the 60 mark, even under intensive conditions like rain.

The following image is a screenshot from the video.

As such, this here forms the minimum benchmark. A game that can be played on an Intel UHD 610 can be played on almost ALL PCs without buying a separate dedicated graphics card. 

Case Study: iGPU Intel HD 630 (G3D Mark Score 1128)

I tested the game on my Intel HD 630 graphics with an Intel Core i7 7700HQ.

The graphics setting was set at “Fast,” 1920×1080 Resolution, Smooth Lighting set to OFF, Render Distance of 12, and Biome Blend set to 5×5.

The game was easily playable. If the game world was generated, the game easily maintained 60 FPS. However, as you moved around and the game world loaded, I did experience a drop in frames.

Case Study: Dedicated AMD R9 270 (G3D Mark Score 4306)

RandomGaminginHD is another user on YouTube who tested Minecraft on a dedicated AMD R9 270, which happens to be one of the GPUs that meets the recommended system requirements for the game.

In this case, the graphics settings were set to Fancy, Maximum Lighting with a resolution of 1920×1080. At a render distance of 32 Chunks, the game was consistently able to run at 200 FPS.

This indicates that for the vanilla game (without any third-party mods installed), AMD R9 270, or any other dedicated graphics card close to its performance score, is way too powerful.

You may as well play the game on 4K settings with these graphics cards and still maintain a decent frame rate.

Case Study: Dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (G3D Mark Score 26283)

Modding knows no bounds. Even the heaviest and most powerful graphics cards can feel underwhelming when modding Minecraft despite being a seemingly straightforward game.

A user that goes by the name of DMIIITRIEV on YouTube did just that.

He tested the game with some of the heaviest mods, including extreme texture resolution, PTGI 12 Shaders, Stratum, AND Ray Tracing on a gaming PC with an RTX 3090.

The game looks fantastic, to say the least; however, even with the behemoth of a graphics card that is the RTX 3090, the game dips below 60 FPS!

This is quite the surprise for a game that is playable on a potato Intel UHD 610 iGPU.

So the point being made here is that the vanilla game itself doesn’t require a dedicated graphics card at all; however, if you are an enthusiast and a modder, then a dedicated graphics card is a must.

Depending on how heavily you mod the game, the sky could be the limit for you. 

Does Minecraft Support Ray Tracing; Do You Need a GeForce RTX Card for Minecraft?

Yes, Minecraft started supporting Ray Tracing after the release of version 1.16.200.

So in case you cannot see the ray tracing option in the settings, then either your graphics card does not support ray tracing or your game is not updated.

It should be noted that a select few graphics cards only support ray tracing, including NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2000 and GeForce RTX 3000 series GPUs and AMD 6000 series GPUs.

Also Read: Do You Need a Graphics Card for Fortnite?

So Do You Need a Graphics Card for Minecraft?

The short answer is no, and I have already established this by looking at the case studies above.

However, the System Requirements show us what kind of GPU Minecraft needs.

Minecraft System Requirements

The following are the official minimum system requirements:

The following are the officially recommended requirements:

• System requirements are taken from Mincraft.net
• Note the system requirements above are for the Minecraft JAVA (original) edition.

If you are well versed with PC hardware, you can tell at first glance that Minecraft DOES NOT require a powerful GPU.

After all, this game was released more than a decade ago, and although there have been significant updates, the game remains exceptionally light and playable even on a potato PC.

Minimum Requirements: Intel HD 4000 / AMD Radeon R5

Intel HD 4000 is an iGPU that was released back in 2012. It is more or less obsolete.

AMD Radeon R5 is also a relatively old obsolete iGPU released in 2014.

As far as their G3D mark scores go, they are nowhere close to the performance that even the weakest iGPUs today can give:

The point I am making here is that even if you have an older 7th gen Intel CPU with an Intel HD 630 GPU (or something close to it), you far exceed the minimum requirements of Minecraft.

In other words, it is difficult not to have a PC with a graphics card that is not capable of playing Minecraft today at the minimum level.

Recommended Graphics Card Requirements for Minecraft

The officially recommended requirements of graphics cards for Minecraft are the GeForce 700 Series / AMD Radeon RX 200.

Unfortunately, this is a bit vague as it does not point you to a model but tells you to an entire series.

Every series has several graphics cards, from low-end to high-end. For instance, the NVIDIA GeForce 700 series has the GT 720 as the entry-level graphics card, GTX 760 as the midrange, and GTX 780 as the high-end dedicated GPU.

Here are the scores for different GPUs from the GeForce 700 and RX 200 lines:

Source of the Benchmark Scores

1. Videocardbenchmark.net

The following chart shows how Minecraft’s minimum and recommended stipulated GPUs compare with the newer and popular iGPUs and dedicated graphics cards.

A few observations can be made here. For starters, the GT 720 and the AMD R5 230 dedicated GPUs are a no-go, and it would not make sense for you to buy them as they are even weaker than the iGPUs.

The mid-range AMD R7 260X is almost as powerful as the AMD Vega 11 iGPU as found on the Ryzen 5 3400G.

The high-end GTX 780 and its contemporary equivalent, the AMD RX 5500, are excellent choices for a dedicated GPU.

Since the GTX 780 is obsolete, the RX 5500 is a great contemporary choice if you want a high-end GPU for modding the game.

Final Words

So, in conclusion, the answer to the question “do you need a graphics card for Minecraft?” is a resounding No! You do not need a dedicated GPU to enjoy the game.

However, you may need a decent low-end dedicated graphics card to meet the higher graphics settings and resolution.

And finally, a high-end graphics card is unnecessary. You only need a high-end graphics card if you are an enthusiast and want to go beyond the vanilla game with heavy graphics-enhancing mods installed.

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