How to update major system components separately?

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I'm taking part in disecting a performance regression on Gnome+Intel graphics. For this I need to update major components separately, one by one.

How do I update the following components separately?
1. Gnome shell (including and especially its guts responsible for compositing)
2. Graphics stack (and its sub-components)
2a. Intel drivers.
2b. other components of graphics stack (?)
3. Kernel

2, 2a, 2b to be updated separately, preferably.

An example would be: To update just kernel issue
yum update kernel kernel-headers kernel-modules-extra