Processor system power and performance management

An integrated circuit apparatus, comprising:

• a plurality of core domains, each having one or more cores with different performance capabilities than a core from at least one other of the plurality of core domains;
• and
• a system management controller (SMC) circuit having:
• a workload type characterization module to provide a workload type for the integrated circuit when it is in operation, and
• a core mask module to influence core selection from cores of the plurality of core domains for thread execution assignment based at least in part on the workload type.