The point of a large iGPU is to scale the usage of such product to larger number of use cases. Car infotainment, wearables, wearable VR, handhelds, push for efficiency, push for reduction of design costs, and manufacturing costs, push for AI expansion and use cases, and plenty more.
Except for Car infotainment, none of the other use cases listed here require, or frankly want a large iGPU that requires more power than what those use cases can provide for the large iGPU to scale, 24CU RDNA3 is a waste running at 15w.
People really live in the past thinking that everything will be as always was, when we are on the brink of software/hardware/experience paradigm shift.
We live in a world where cost per transistor has basically stagnated and wafer costs are skyrocketing with each new process, and therefore every mm^2 of silicon is precious. An APU with a large GPU component (24CU RDNA3 IGP would definitely qualify) being sold to the public will inevitably face at least some consumers that don't assign a large premium to the GPU part, effectively making that chunk of die space a waste. It just makes more sense to cut that extra silicon out of the APU and assign it to actual GPUs, where there is far more certainty that potential buyers would assign value to the GPU in question.
If you do not get it, already: scaling iGPUs larger is to increase TAM, and use cases to increase both volume, and profit margins. The goal(of AMD and Intel) is that APUs/SOCs are going to be 90% of all of computing. That is the reason why Nvidia tried to buy ARM, to have a competitive edge in a world where all they have are essentially non-APU projects.
And no, we are not talking about small iGPUs, integrated in CPUs or CPU packages. We are talking about big and powerful GPUs.
As per above, in an era where Wafers costs are skyrocketing, spending extra silicon on attributes where it's uncertain to be valued by end consumers makes little sense.
To put it in a more concrete example:
- AMD can probably make a hell of an APU if they were willing to go big with ~280mm^2 die on 5nm. That's the sort of space where ~N33 performance in an iGPU would be very possible. The problem is that 280mm^2 is a lot of silicon, equivalent to either:
- 4 Zen 4 CCDs, which is not very far away from 2 7950Xs, selling for ~$600+ each.
- Navi 31 GCD, which is the core chip to the 7900XTX, a product that sells for $1k.
Now, can 8c Zen4 with an N33-class iGPU sell for the sort of premiums which can compete with these options for AMD internally?