Role of the iGPU with a dedicated GPU

[underground235]

I'm curious about what the integrated graphics card brings to the table when you have a dedicated card. If I have a 7700K and a GTX 1070, does the Intel Graphics 630 do anything? Does it help the processor with its workload, in essence becoming a specialized 5th core? I haven't been able to find any information on this and don't really understand why Intel includes these on high end CPUs for users who will clearly 99% of the time purchase a dedicated graphics card. If anyone could link to specialized literature or information/sites, I'd be grateful.

 

[SinxarKnights]

It saves lots of money.

No longer need to manufacture separate chipsets with graphics.

If you have it disabled in the BIOS it does nothing and it just turned off. You can use it for QuickSync encoding if you enable it or you can use it for more monitors if you run out of ports on the graphics card.

That is a wild assumption that 99% of the time people will use a graphics card with a high end CPU. The gaming marking is quite small with the majority of systems being sold to the general users. You know, surfing, facebook etc. You don't need a discreet graphics card in systems that do a lot of intense work. Think, labs, universities, etc. You just need to see the output of a terminal.

 

[Ecky]

99% of the time, users do not purchase a graphics card with these high-end CPUs. Intel has something silly like 80% of the GPU market. Gamers who use discrete cards are a tiny minority.

Your iGPU can be made useful. It's good for extra video outputs, for instance, and has some features you can use such as Quicksync, which greatly speeds up video encoding in those programs that support it.

 

[underground235]

Thanks for the replies. This didn't really answer my question. I understand there's probably a manufacturing/economic logic to it (they probably produce the base dies together with others mobile etc. reducing costs).
The 7700K is specifically geared at the gaming (realtime performance) segment, sure that might be small I agree with that. CPUs for scientific purposes labs, universities are usually multi core server-like chips and I can't imagine office computers using the 7700K a lot. Furthermore GPUs are now often used for specific types of computing regularly found in these types of applications. This chip is also usable by audio professionals for its low latency, realtime performance, who usually also work with video and would own at least a 150 dollar GPU. Finally standard office computers will not use a top of the line i7 quad core, because it makes no economic sense. This leaves us with video professionals who clearly use dedicated GPUs and would also focus more on multi core processors.

My question was more about whether the iGPU actually works as part of the standard CPU computation process or whether theoretically Intel could be putting in more cores/performance instead of these iGPUs on their top end chips. I don't know why you decided to focus on this claim of the 99% which wasn't that important.

 

[TJ Hooker]

I understand there's probably a manufacturing/economic logic to it (they probably produce the base dies together with others mobile etc. reducing costs).
The 7700K is specifically geared at the gaming (realtime performance) segment, sure that might be small I agree with that. CPUs for scientific purposes labs, universities are usually multi core server-like chips and I can't imagine office computers using the 7700K a lot. Furthermore GPUs are now often used for specific types of computing regularly found in these types of applications. This chip is also usable by audio professionals for its low latency, realtime performance, who usually also work with video and would own at least a 150 dollar GPU. Finally standard office computers will not use a top of the line i7 quad core, because it makes no economic sense. This leaves us with video professionals who clearly use dedicated GPUs and would also focus more on multi core processors.

The 7700k uses the same die as all other kaby lake i7s and i5s. Even if we assume no one buying a 7700k uses the iGPU, lots of people using other quad core SKUs do, so it makes sense to include an iGPU. And it's not worth making a whole different die just for the 7700k.

My question was more about whether the iGPU actually works as part of the standard CPU computation process or whether theoretically Intel could be putting in more cores/performance instead of these iGPUs on their top end chips.

They already do that: Intel's HEDT (LGA 2011) CPUs have an increased core count and no iGPU.