Linux

Basically.

I like the E and p cores, mostly because I used to do a lot of core architecture for supercomputer chips and this was one of my ideas I wanted to implement, fully heterogenous cores with Linux support for scheduling.

But no, there's no reason to pick Intel, I only got it because it was cheap, and I don't use it for gaming.

So VCN has caught up some, but QS is still faster, generally has better support and better codecs before VCN. Also has combinations, vainfo gives me something like 20 encoders on intel, 8 on amd, mostly stuff like 444 for each variant of hevc, etc. Also my 7600xt was more picky with which settings it would take, the intel block seems fairly comfortable with more.

My Xe has AV1 encode (at ludicrous speeds, I get 30x sometimes, it changed my flow entirely, I stream av1 only now), it's had hevc well earlier than amd, and overall it's usually a good bit faster (an intel igpu will usually encode faster than an amd dgpu).

Also quality has been reviewed to be better, feel free to google that, it's apparently pretty marginal to human observers.

But like I said, the difference is nowhere like it was, AMD is catching up, software is coming together so vaapi covers most cases without complaint.

There's no reason to consider the difference between them unless encoding is your primary focus, and you're trying to use very modern codecs.