Why are Intel and AMD both so obsessed with integrated graphics?

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Shwee

Shwee

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Oct 12, 2013
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Mostly in the title...
Every review site I go to, every thread, and my own common sense tells me that integrated graphics is... well, POINTLESS! I suppose it's good for laptops, but why would anyone need desktop integrated graphics on anything larger than a Pentium or i3? The space just seems to be wasted on the i5 and i7 chips, because with a chip that expensive, you'll probably have a dedicated graphics card anyway. This seems to be especially relevant now as Intel is bashed for not making Haswell much faster than Ivy Bridge.
Then there's AMD... they're already so far behind in the desktop market, shouldn't they be neglecting integrated graphics entirely for the sake of catching up in compute power and offering competition? I seem to be missing something fairly important here.
 
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Gaidax
OEMs' love it and those are the big money makers for both the CPU suppliers.

Other than that - I am sure that Intel and AMD have a grand plan for those integrated solutions in a future - for example those iGPUs' can be used as a very potent vector co-processor (extremely useful in game physics and so on).

Intel already taps on iGPU power with QuickSync which now also works when you are using a dedicated GPU and that is only a taste of things to come.

AMD and Intel are not dumb, they are aware that for many people this iGPU is a dead weight at the moment, but I am sure that unlike us they know exactly what will be out there in 5 years from now and what they know could be related to making CPUs' more powerful through making them also a...
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Blaise170

Blaise170

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Not everyone uses their PCs for gaming. Quite the contrary, most people just use their PCs for business or as a home computer for watching movies or playing facebook games. With the APU series from AMD especially, one can create a very nice home entertainment system for a fraction of the cost of buying a dedicated GPU.
 
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JOOK-D

JOOK-D

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Aug 28, 2013
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Integrated graphics and dedicated graphics are tailored to completely different needs and markets. Integrated for those who don't do gaming or anything taxing, and may just browse the web or do some light office work. Dedicated is obviously for those who need the extra power for work or play.

I know I wouldn't want to pay extra for dedicated graphics if all I was going to do was browse the web. The laptop I'm on currently has the intel HD 4000 and it's absolutely fine. I can even play some games on it at good FPS.
 
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mc962

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It's also nice if you were like me, and couldnt afford the dedicated gpu right away. HD 4600 graphics were a great way to make it through the 2 months or so until I felt like buying my graphics card.

Plus, if you arent gaming, it's a great way to cut out heat and power consumption. For many they could use that money towards something like an ssd
 
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Gaidax

Gaidax

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Sep 27, 2013
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OEMs' love it and those are the big money makers for both the CPU suppliers.

Other than that - I am sure that Intel and AMD have a grand plan for those integrated solutions in a future - for example those iGPUs' can be used as a very potent vector co-processor (extremely useful in game physics and so on).

Intel already taps on iGPU power with QuickSync which now also works when you are using a dedicated GPU and that is only a taste of things to come.

AMD and Intel are not dumb, they are aware that for many people this iGPU is a dead weight at the moment, but I am sure that unlike us they know exactly what will be out there in 5 years from now and what they know could be related to making CPUs' more powerful through making them also a powerful compute units though iGPU, which is their weakness right now, but in order to push it through for real they need to make sure that as many as possible rigs comply with that future standard once it is released or used widely.
 
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Shwee

Shwee

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I can see how that would make sense to them in the future. It leaves me feeling a bit screwed over being forced to go with an LGA 2011 processor or Xeon if I want pure cpu power instead of an iGPU though.
 
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Blaise170

Blaise170

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It really doesn't matter. An LGA 1150 processor with Intel HD graphics still has plenty of raw power. The i7-4770K has Intel HD 4600 but you won't find a better CPU for power unless you start buying Extremes or Xeons like you said. There's no reason not to buy a CPU just because it comes with integrated graphics.

Just take the FX AMD series for example, they are much less powerful, yet they have no integrated graphics. In fact, they have more cores, but they are still less powerful.
 
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Calculatron

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I think that, if AMD had not made the marketing/business move to place such an emphasis on integrated graphics, it would have remained a "good enough" in the production and development on the Intel side of things. (Intel can't just *let* AMD have all that market share.) As counter-intuitive as a move as it seemed to be, it was a good moved on AMD's part - they won a lot of revenue with those console wins. Hopefully, it works out in the long run.

From a number-crunching min-maxing gamer perspective, emphasis on integrated graphics does seem silly. I was perplexed by it for a while, and thought it was a silly idea ("Why is it called an APU? It is just a CPU with beefed up integrated graphics. Wasn't Intel the first one to implement integrated graphics?") but then my significant other's laptop took a horrible tumble, and rather than a replacement, she wanted a desktop computer. Now she has a rig centered on an A10-5800K. If I ever have to build a away-from-home office PC, it's probably going to be based on an APU.

As for performance, we can knock AMD a lot when it comes to benchmarks and gaming, and at the end of the day they still get the job done. Only enthusiast activities, like hardcore gaming or some sort of sound/graphics rendering may leave them wanting, but it's not like their terrible at that either.
 
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Blaise170

Blaise170

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Plus one to this. My FX-6300 holds up just fine for intense programs, yet it's considered a "middle-tier" CPU by most.
 
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