Out of Pod Experience

I'm running a client with everything (except shadows and AA) on medium at native resolution with an integrated HD 4000. Runs better than fine, I can even run 3 clients simultaneously at 1024x768 each.

However.

Not sure if it's just the Intel drivers or the chip itself, but there are several graphical glitches present. You'll see the sun through your ship and engine effects are permanently glitched out. There are other minor things but it is irritating.

If you're building a tower, buy a GTX 460 as someone above has already stated. I have this card on my custom built PC and it will run EvE with absolutely everything (and I mean everything, every single option in available on the menu) on maximum at 1920x1080 and I expect it could do the same at even higher resolutions. It also won't cost you very much now, I'd estimate around $70 or so.

Integrated chips like the HD 4000 are designed for use in mobile devices like laptops and tablets. If you have the space (and subsequently the cooling power) of a tower case, there's no reason to buy the HD 4000 over a proper Nvidia card like the GTX 460.

If you've already decide on the i5 ( I just chose the same CPU), then just build the PC and try EVE using the integrated HD4000, if your not happy grab yourself a mid-range card and crank the settings up to 11 !

lol
GTX 460 will still kick anything that comes out of intel graphics labs.

To OP.
The minimum requirements to run EVE are:
1) CPU that does SSE2 instruction set.
2) Graphics chip that does Shader Model 3.
That is it!

Regarding 1. intel started supporting SSE2 with Pentium 4. That is why all the people with old P3 boxes (like me) are out of luck. But anyway. All you have to do is get a comp with P4 or better.

Regarding 2. intel started supporting Shader Model 3 with its HD 3100 or HD 3500 graphics chip. Your HD 4000 should be fine. Like others said, HD 4000 might not be great, but it should still play the game. Anything from ATI and nVidia will be much much better than anything from intel. You can get old nVidia 8400 chip with 512 MB of video RAM for something like 40 dollars and it will run EVE client on high details.

A word of warning. If you buy nVidia and you want something decent, don't buy their 1xx, 2xx, 3xx, GT 405 series cards. Those chips only do DX 10, same as 8xxx and 9xxx series chips. At the very minimum get GT 420 or higher series chip. The GT 420 and up (5xx, 6xx) do DX 11. So if a year or two from now you need DX 11, you will have it.

Well, like I mentioned in an earlier thread I play EVE PLUS GUILD WARS 2 in low settings NO PROBLEM off a Dell Vostro with 4 gigs RAM, win 7 64 and a measly Intel HD 3000. You can play no problem, but at the barest minimum, but play nonetheless.

So a 4000 might be a bigger improvement but remember you are not going full detail on it.

OTOH tho, friend got a Mac Retina ... IM JELLY , he plays on his "#$#"$ laptop all games better than I do on my regular desktop not due to GPU power, but out of the gorgeous SCREEN ... its amazing how a high quality screen can turn writing or doing excel sheets over and over into something less stressful for the eyes, also the integrated gpu it comes with is pretty decent!

The Retina MacPro actually has a similar setup to me - It has an integrated HD4000, with a switchable GT650M 1GB DDR5 dedicated card. So it's not entirely running on the HD4000, the high-demand apps run off of a dedicated card. But I definitely have to agree that the Retina display makes everything look pretty incredible. I'm certainly not a Mac fan at all, but they hit one out of the park with that screen.

Pretty sure that HD4000 will run this game since I am running this with HD3000 now

60 FPS high textures and high lod, others low and no AA. Working like a charm.

OFC just one client.

Purchased a 2012 Mac Mini with HD4000 2 weeks ago for IOS Dev.

After noticing satisfying performance in OSX from that integrated graphic card I decided to give a go in some game. EVE Online surprisingly run smooth on this setup without that much effort.

Logged in, the used "Optimize settings for performance". Didn't try anything fancy here, and the game is really playable. Again no fancy graphic but 60fps is here for casual player ! Enjoy :)

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The integrated Intel HD4000 is surprisingly punchy, I was playing BF3 with mine while I was waiting for the graphics card to get delivered. It would certainly play EVE.