GPU market continues to grow

AMD and Nvidia game market share

Overall GPU shipments increased 9.3 percent from last quarter, AMD increased eight percent, Nvidia rose 30 pe cent and Intel, increased by five percent, according to figures from Jon Peddie Research.

The desktop gain is attributed to gaming and cryptocurrency which mainly helped AMD and Nvidia gain market share.

Total graphics market share

The third quarter is typically the strongest from the previous quarter in the seasonal cycles of the past. For Q3'17 it increased 9.3 percent from last quarter and was below the ten-year average of 9.52 percent.

AMD's overall unit shipments increased 7.63 percent quarter-to-quarter, Intel's total shipments rose 5.01 percent from last quarter and Nvidia's increased 29.53 percent. The attach rate of GPUs (includes integrated and discrete GPUs) to PCs for the quarter was 144 percent which was down -1.28 percent from last quarter.

Discrete GPUs were in 39.55 percent of PCs, which is up 4.18 percent. The overall PC market increased 10.31 percent quarter-to-quarter, and decreased -2.06 percent year-to-year.

Desktop graphics add-in boards (AIBs) that use discrete GPUs increased 29.05 percent from last quarter. Q3'17 saw an increase in tablet shipments from last quarter.

The normal seasonality has returned to the PC market, albeit in a slowly declining way, the report said.

Total PC shipments WW(M units)

GPUs are traditionally a leading indicator of the market, since a GPU goes into every system before it is shipped, and most of the PC vendors are guiding cautiously for the fourth quarter.

The Gaming PC segment, where higher-end GPUs are used, was the bright spot in the market in the quarter. AMD's shipments of desktop heterogeneous GPU/CPUs, i.e., APUs, increased 7.1 percent from the previous quarter.

AMD's notebook APU shipments were up 2.2 percent. Desktop discrete GPUs increased 16.1 percent from last quarter, and notebook discrete shipments increased 5.2 percent. AMD's total PC graphics shipments increased 7.6 percent from the previous quarter.

Intel's desktop processor-graphics shipments increased from last quarter by 5.0 percent, and notebook processors increased by 5.9 percent, and total PC graphics shipments increased 5.0 percent from last quarter.

Nvidia's discrete desktop GPU shipments were up 34.7 percent from last quarter, and the company's discrete notebook GPU shipments increased 22.4 percent, and total PC graphics shipments increased 29.5percent from last quarter.

Total discrete GPUs (desktop and notebook) shipments for the industry increased 23.3 percent from the last quarter and increased 11.7 percent from last year.

Sales of discrete GPUs fluctuated due to timing, memory pricing issues, new product introductions, and the influence of integrated graphics.

Only one percent of Intel's non-server processors don't have graphics, and over 66 percent of AMD's non-server processors contain integrated graphics; AMD still ships integrated graphics chipsets (IGPs).