Hello Man, with the growth of fabrication technology that is getting smaller and smaller, it remind me of my first computer with a Pentium 2 CPU from Intel which is 250nm and when compared to today (2020 at the time I wrote this) it is now only 7nm. Just imagine how small it is until it is 35x smaller than 250nm. Ok enough nostalgia, but related to earlier, now with smaller fabrications, manufacturers can embed better integrated GPUs in each generation.
You must be know the PS4 or Xbox One game consoles is using integrated graphics, if you don’t know that the console uses an integrated GPU / APU and not only that the PS5 and Xbox Series X generations also follow with newer technology of course. But for PC, the current APU / Integrated GPU still can’t achieve even entry level GPU performance (Such as Vega 8 & GT 1030). Hopefully, in the future, Integrated GPUs can be more varied from low end to high end.
So what if it’s a GPU discrete? in my opinion discrete GPU compared to iGPU, discrete GPU is more independent in processing graphics on a PC so it does not affect CPU performance which makes both run optimally. Meanwhile, the iGPU because it attaches to the APU/CPU will certainly reduce the CPU allocation ration on the APU chip so that it makes both of them not too optimal and also because each chip has a power limit for every processing that occurs sometimes there will be a bottleneck / overheat if the CPU and GPU do heavy tasks simultaneously.
So which one is suitable for you iGPU or Discrete GPU? So here I will break it down into 2 points:
- Integrated GPU
Integrated GPU is suitable for those of you who need a budget-oriented device. So because the iGPU is a bundle with a CPU, the cost of APU is usually more economical (and also power efficient) because you don’t need to buy a GPU anymore and you can also still upgrade the discrete GPU in the future. Even so, APUs have CPU/GPU performance that is not too optimal compared to dedicated CPUs/GPUs.
- Discrete GPU
Discrete GPU is suitable for those of you who need a performance-oriented device. So because the CPU and GPU are dedicated or have their own space. CPU/GPU performance becomes more optimal because it does not share the chip allocation and each hardware has its own power limit. Even so, generally discrete GPUs cost more than APUs.
Okay, so have you determined which one to choose?