Why did AMD release Ryzen without any integrated graphics or APU?

[Col. Sandurz]

To be honest the most interesting point of having an integrated GPU on something more than low end CPU seems to be the freesync hack.

[Inversion]

Regarding the OP's question. AMD knew that the majority of people that would buy their new processors would be gamers. This meant that the majority would already have graphics cards in their system or factored into a budget. Since AMD had been on the back foot for processors for the past few years, they knew they needed as much die space as possible to add components that would wipe the grin off Intel's face. Adding integrated graphics wasn't a priority for them because what they needed was fast CPUs to start selling in volume and re-establish AMD as a serious hard hitter in the CPU space. 

While an iGPU is helpful when troubleshooting a GPU issue, ultimately that's not something that affects the vast majority of their customers and it was easier for them to produce high performance CPUs at first if they weren't worrying about getting Vega onto an 8 core processor.

The fact that Vega was also a bit of a letdown when it launched may also have played into it because while a lot of enthusiasts on the likes of this forum would know we wouldn't use the Vega graphics that much anyway, to average Joe walking into his local computer shop, it could be a deal breaker if he doesn't understand it. There were loads of headlines slamming AMD and Vega for not being as good as Pascal and someone who's not as into computers could see Vega on the packaging and think that he definitely doesn't want that. You don't see articles slamming Intel's iGPU because it's not based on a high end gaming architecture.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

2 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

 

So why did AMD release Ryzen without any integrated graphics or APU? Even though you obviously wouldn't run games off of integrated graphics it's still very useful to have and helps a lot in troubleshooting, especially in graphics card related troubleshooting.

TL;DR: how much are you willing to pay for "nice to have"?

 

2 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

My understanding is that the next gen of Ryzen will have integrated Vega graphics.

I could be wrong, but I don't see this happening for anything with more than 4 cores, 6 at best if they start making bigger CCXs, since the way Ryzen APUs are made right now is by having the iGPU take the place used by the second CCX in Ryzen 5-7. So, you either get CCX+CCX, or you get CCX+iGPU in the same package.

 

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, ZacoAttaco said:

It's good to have competition. Intel has to start doing stuff now.

 

Ryzen is also keeping the same socket? AMD were sending CPU to customers to help flash their mobos right?

Agreed

Yes and Yes.

[ZacoAttaco]

3 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

TL;DR: how much are you willing to pay for "nice to have"?

I have a 4790K that I'm really happy with right now and I am running triple monitor with one monitor running off Integrated Graphics so for me personally it's worth the extra. But I could see for most others it maybe wouldn't worth it.

[O9B0666]

If you have a 4790k you would be down grading going to a ryzen sku that has a built in igpu. 

10 hours ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Like I said, I don't necessarily wanted to game or do anything demanding on an iGPU, it's more the flexibility.

 

Right now I'm running triple monitor, 2 off my 280 and 1 off my 4790K. Also, if there's any issues with my GPU I can still troubleshoot using integrated graphics which is helpful. I just wondering if I were to consider another build, if lack of integrated graphics would be a deal breaker for a Ryzen system but it seems that's going to change.

 

Thanks for the knowledge everyone

 

 

[PlayStation 2]

Just speculation, but AMD likely prioritized getting iGPU-less Ryzen out the door to iron out whatever they could for when their APUs launched; that and they probably wanted to iron out RAM issues, too, while they were getting ready to launch the APUs.