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Gamers are finally buying new graphics cards again

Monica J. White
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RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT on a pink background.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

In June, we reported on the clobbering GPUs had taken in sales, even with some of the best graphics cards becoming available. Now, things are finally starting to turn around, with the latest market report showing signs of growth over the last few months despite it being a traditionally weak time of year for graphics cards.

The scoop comes from Jon Peddie Research, which has released its latest report on the graphics card market. While year-to-year figures are pretty grim, this past quarter showed a lot of promise. In the second quarter of 2023, GPU shipments increased by 11.6%. Despite this recovery, the market still saw a 27% decrease year-to-year. This includes all platforms and all types of GPUs. For desktop GPUs, the yearly losses are even worse, with a 36% decrease from the same time last year, although desktop add-in boards (AIBs) increased by 2.9%.

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Jon Peddie Research notes that the quarterly increase is surprising, but is great news overall. The second quarter of the year is typically a bad time for the PC market, but this year, shipments have gone up significantly. While shipments and sales are two different things, a sudden increase in GPU shipments still bodes well for the market as a whole. What’s perhaps even more surprising is that AMD had the best quarter of all three manufacturers.

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AMD is the only one to see a market share increase in the past quarter, wrangling 1.2% away from Intel (-0.4% loss) and Nvidia (-0.8% loss). The increase in shipments is more impressive, though, with AMD shipping 22.9% more graphics cards than the previous quarter, followed by 11.7% for Intel and 7.5% for Nvidia. However, as per the report, Nvidia had the most total shipments this quarter, but its best results were in notebooks, while AMD did well in desktops.

GPU market share in Q2 2023.
Jon Peddie Research

This increase in shipments for AMD is interesting. There wasn’t much going on outside of the launch of the RX 7600 in May, so that could have contributed, but there’s probably more to it than that. The fact is that AMD’s last-gen GPUs, having received multiple price cuts, are some of the most affordable cards to put inside a PC build right now. This strategy seems to be paying off for AMD, keeping the demand high and helping it clear out last-gen stock. Even current-gen cards can usually be found below their initial list price these days. In the case of Nvidia, GPUs are usually around the list price or slightly below, with some overclocked models selling for more.

AMD hasn’t been doing much to compete against Nvidia in this generation, and it seems to be sitting out of the race in the next generation, too. However, its upcoming RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT graphics cards are priced competitively, as is the RX 7600. This could add up to another good quarter for AMD.

Although there are some signs of recovery for graphics cards, Jon Peddie Research notes that, “if the market has indeed turned around, it’s not going to get to the levels it was 10 years ago,” referencing the steady decline in GPU sales over the past decade. Despite that, the analyst believes AMD, Nvidia, and Intel are all looking at a strong second half of the year.

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Monica J. White
Monica J. White
Computing Writer
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
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