Skip to main content

Nvidia dominating in add-in graphics card market, AMD floundering

Although AMD might have scored a big win by getting its hardware into both Microsoft and Sony’s latest generation consoles, it’s place in the add-in graphics card market has been slipping for years. That trend looks to have continued over the past quarter, with the latest numbers suggesting it’s lost another near-5 percent of the market to its main rival, Nvidia.

These numbers come straight from the latest John Peddie Research report (via PCper) and it gives AMD just 18 percent of the current graphics card market. Nvidia in contrast, has a full 81.9 percent, with Matrox just sneaking in there at the end with 0.1 percent.

Recommended Videos

AMD has been behind Nvidia in terms of sheer GPU adoption numbers for years though, so why are these numbers so significant? Because just three months ago, AMD’s share was closer to a quarter, at 22.5 percent. This time last year, it was higher still, with 37.9 percent of the overall discrete GPU market.

As bleak as these numbers are however, they should be considered just one piece of evidence of the current landscape. Mercury Research also put out its own report recently, which also shows AMD’s share dwindling, but it doesn’t go so far as the John Peddie report, stating that AMD’s share is 23.6 percent instead. Falling from a high of 36.2 percent this time last year.

However these statistics paint an even more worrisome picture of the market as a whole, as though Nvidia has captured some of AMD’s market share in recent months, the entire add-in card industry is stuttering. As more hardware makes use of integrated APUs from AMD and Intel, the percentage of desktop systems fitted with dedicated graphics card has fallen to 37 percent.

When compared with 2008, where that figure was 63 percent, the decline is obvious. While the enthusiast and gaming market sectors continue to support big players like Nvidia and (to a lesser extent now) AMD, the market itself is not what it once was.

There will likely be an audience for this sort of hardware for the foreseeable future, but as integrated GPUs and APUs become more powerful, add-in cards may become less necessary for those that don’t need bleeding-edge graphics.

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…
AMD dominates Amazon CPU sales, but Intel still fights back
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D sitting on a motherboard.

Although the market share would tell you otherwise, the battle between AMD and Intel is quite fierce right now, and it's AMD that often tops the list of the best processors in the last couple of years. Intel, while it holds a bigger part of the CPU market, is less of a go-to for gamers than AMD these days, and this is reflected in Amazon sales. Just yesterday, AMD held the top 15 spots on the list of Amazon's CPU best sellers. Today, Intel is making its way back.

As spotted by TechEpiphany on X (Twitter), AMD really dominated Amazon CPU sales just recently. Every single CPU in the top 15 belonged to AMD, with Intel nowhere to be seen. Surprisingly, the top processor turned out to be the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is a favorite among gamers.

Read more
Struggling to find an AMD RX 9070? Stock shortages may ease soon
The Yeston Sakura Atlantis Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card

AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 series graphics cards are facing a massive supply shortage ever since their launch earlier this month, leading to price hikes and limited availability. However, Yeston, an add-in-board (AIB) partner, has reassured customers that supply will stabilize after April, offering relief to those struggling to find the GPUs at reasonable prices.

In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Yeston acknowledged the current stock issues but confirmed that weekly restocks are happening and that a more stable supply flow is expected after April. This suggests AMD and its partners are ramping up production to meet demand and ease market shortages.

Read more
Even AMD is surprised by how fast it’s gaining on Nvidia
Several AMD RX 9000 series graphics cards.

AMD's RX 9000 series quickly joined the ranks of the best graphics cards, and it appears that its success came as a surprise to everyone -- yes, even AMD itself. At a recent roundtable in Japan, the company revealed that its market share skyrocketed recently, reaching a whopping 45% in Japan. Although this refers to Japan, it's easy to imagine that AMD is gaining on Nvidia globally, too, although there are a few things to consider here.

AMD's Yoshiaki Sato and Saki Suzuki shared a couple of updates during a Team AMD Roundtable held in Japan, which was later shared by ASCII. AMD was joined on stage by representatives of its many board partners, including ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, and Sapphire. AMD's add-in board partners (AIBs) reportedly shared that they wanted to make and sell more Radeon graphics cards, but were being held back due to a lack of GPUs. To this, AMD's Sato replied: "AMD isn't used to selling [this many] graphics cards."

Read more