Whats the point of onboard video?

[mobonoob2]

I notice some I/O's have HDMI/DVI/DP, what is the purpose of this on motherboards, what is it used for and also HOW does it work? Can i run the board then without a graphics card? Can i play, say sc2 on this? Also what is D-Sub?

 

[smeezekitty]

Yes. You can run the board without the graphics card.

Two reasons:
1. To make low cost computers without the extra cost of a separate graphics card
2. For testing without a graphics card

It is generally quite a bit poorer of performer compared to most cards.
What is sc2?

 

[johnnyevil]

You have to consider that not everyone needs or even wants to have the most powerful gaming system out there. The evidence of that is the tablet boom we're living through now.

Also, Onboard graphics have come along way! You get the job done with them...You can play recent games on low settings in a lot of cases(again, graphical performance is not the end all be all for a lot of people).

In the case of lap tops, it's kind of cool that you can plop your laptop down in front of your tv and connect an HDMI cable to it and set your big ol' 50" LCD as your monitor, enable wifi, go to netflix and stream a movie to your tv. Then after that, play some games and so on....

D-sub....you're possibly refering to the VGA port but there's all kinds of stuff. Go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature

 

[Xttony]

I notice some I/O's have HDMI/DVI/DP, what is the purpose of this on motherboards, what is it used for and also HOW does it work? Can i run the board then without a graphics card? Can i play, say sc2 on this? Also what is D-Sub?

You need to have a processor that has onboard graphics to use it. Previously onboard graphics chips were placed on the motherboard but now it comes along the processor.
It is always good to have onboard graphics even when you use a graphics card, as it can work as a backup if the graphics card causes any problems.

 

[Cons29]

in addition, previous board (older), have built in graphics processor, now those graphics processor comes with the processor (for intel at least)

i don't use it but i dont have a choice and yes it will come in handy when the gpu fails,