Ok i wanted to make this thread to discuss about this matter ever since people started chearing when AMD cut down the IGP in Renoir with some people thinking that the idea was giving "CPU higher priority because IGP priority gave nothing to AMD".
Im going to go back several years to the first notebook i ever had, the MSI U230, this was the time that in small factors your choices were a increible slow Atom CPU+useless IGP, the ION platform (Intel Atom + Nvidia chipset with a OK igp), later replaced with the ION2 platform when Intel did not allowed Nvidia to make chipsets anymore, ION2 was Intel Atom+Intel chipset+Nvidia ION2 gpu in a x1 PCI-E connection used via optimus, and finally AMD Yukon platform, with AMD Neo CPUs (it were the same CPUs but with lower clocks and voltage).
The MSI U230 as one of the best you could get in the Yukon platform, with a dual core L335 and a RS780 chipset with a HD3200 IGP, AMD was having far more CPU perf than the ATOMs, and the HD3200 was hand to hand with the IONs, because the HD3200 was a little slower than Nvidia ION GPUs(specially ION2 that had VRAM), but the CPU perf difference was way too high, so in gaming the HD3200 was better, specially with dual channel, only the ION2 was at top a few times.
Then AMD came up with i think it is the worst they ever did, the small cores. The first APU was the E-350 that was a Dual Core with Bobcat cores and a integrated HD6310 (it was a HD5450 in a IGP), but with single channel ram.
I went ahead and brought one, a HP DM1z, i was planning to give my U230 away and replace it the DM1z... You guys have no idea how dissapointed i was with the DM1z, the Bobcat cores were slower than the ones in the L335, and the IGP was held back by the single channel ram, resulting only in a very small jump gaming in performace. Only batery life were about 1 hour longer.
And thats was the last notebook i owned, by that time i was already working in a computer distrubutor with access to a lot of notebooks and general hardware.
Everything went downhill there, Intel did a far better job in keeping OEMs from using the worthless Atom off the mainstream notebooks(until Baytrail), but AMD small cores were not restricted to small factors and started to go in every type of notebook, this damaged AMD image A LOT, because performance was BAD, really, really bad, even in IGP has Intel HD3000 was outperforming the 80CU IGP in the small core APUs. The small cores are a problem even today as unsold Carrizo-L and Stoney Ridge notebooks models are still around, even with a SSD these things feel slow. And SSD arent common on those models.
And that was not the only problem i saw, the number of small core notebooks was hidding the big core AMD APU models, the big core APU models became rare, but they did a lot better in performance vs the Intel notebooks, but even big cores APUs had both CPU and GPU performance problems vs Intel, as well as using more power. At the end AMD did not had a clear GPU lead over Intel in big cores in notebooks either.
This changed only with the first Ryzen Mobile APUs, but they still had turbo and power efficiency issues that AMD fixed in Renoir.
So what i think is was never about giving the IGP priority, it was about the mistakes they did with the small cores, and they never had a clear lead on the mobile big core APUs either.
Im going to go back several years to the first notebook i ever had, the MSI U230, this was the time that in small factors your choices were a increible slow Atom CPU+useless IGP, the ION platform (Intel Atom + Nvidia chipset with a OK igp), later replaced with the ION2 platform when Intel did not allowed Nvidia to make chipsets anymore, ION2 was Intel Atom+Intel chipset+Nvidia ION2 gpu in a x1 PCI-E connection used via optimus, and finally AMD Yukon platform, with AMD Neo CPUs (it were the same CPUs but with lower clocks and voltage).
The MSI U230 as one of the best you could get in the Yukon platform, with a dual core L335 and a RS780 chipset with a HD3200 IGP, AMD was having far more CPU perf than the ATOMs, and the HD3200 was hand to hand with the IONs, because the HD3200 was a little slower than Nvidia ION GPUs(specially ION2 that had VRAM), but the CPU perf difference was way too high, so in gaming the HD3200 was better, specially with dual channel, only the ION2 was at top a few times.
Then AMD came up with i think it is the worst they ever did, the small cores. The first APU was the E-350 that was a Dual Core with Bobcat cores and a integrated HD6310 (it was a HD5450 in a IGP), but with single channel ram.
I went ahead and brought one, a HP DM1z, i was planning to give my U230 away and replace it the DM1z... You guys have no idea how dissapointed i was with the DM1z, the Bobcat cores were slower than the ones in the L335, and the IGP was held back by the single channel ram, resulting only in a very small jump gaming in performace. Only batery life were about 1 hour longer.
And thats was the last notebook i owned, by that time i was already working in a computer distrubutor with access to a lot of notebooks and general hardware.
Everything went downhill there, Intel did a far better job in keeping OEMs from using the worthless Atom off the mainstream notebooks(until Baytrail), but AMD small cores were not restricted to small factors and started to go in every type of notebook, this damaged AMD image A LOT, because performance was BAD, really, really bad, even in IGP has Intel HD3000 was outperforming the 80CU IGP in the small core APUs. The small cores are a problem even today as unsold Carrizo-L and Stoney Ridge notebooks models are still around, even with a SSD these things feel slow. And SSD arent common on those models.
And that was not the only problem i saw, the number of small core notebooks was hidding the big core AMD APU models, the big core APU models became rare, but they did a lot better in performance vs the Intel notebooks, but even big cores APUs had both CPU and GPU performance problems vs Intel, as well as using more power. At the end AMD did not had a clear GPU lead over Intel in big cores in notebooks either.
This changed only with the first Ryzen Mobile APUs, but they still had turbo and power efficiency issues that AMD fixed in Renoir.
So what i think is was never about giving the IGP priority, it was about the mistakes they did with the small cores, and they never had a clear lead on the mobile big core APUs either.
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