A surprising new report shows that Intel is now neck-and-neck with AMD when it comes to graphics card market share — which seems like a remarkable achievement considering Intel only recently started producing discrete consumer GPUs.
I say “seems” because the report is polite PC market research firm JPR (opens in a new tab)pointing out that AMD and Intel both hold 9 percent of the GPU market — with market leader Nvidia far ahead of both with a whopping 82 percent market share.
While it’s certainly impressive that Intel has managed to catch up to the far more mature AMD (in the discrete GPU space), it’s undeniable that it feels a bit like Intel and AMD are fighting for scrap while Nvidia continues to dominate sales.
Monopolies are never a good thing
Now, I’m a big Nvidia fan, and like many PC gamers, Team Green is pretty much my default choice when upgrading my rig, and it’s fair to say that Nvidia has had a lot of success thanks to For producing some of the best graphics cards money can buy.
However, it’s never a good thing when one company dominates a market so thoroughly. A market leader that is so vastly ahead of its competitors is often seen as complacent — after all, why innovate when you’re making tons of cash?
Many feel that Nvidia is guilty of this, especially with its RTX 4000-series GPUs, which have so far focused on the high-end while ignoring gamers who are looking for more affordable cards.
The company has also made some high-profile blunders recently, such as the RTX 4080 12GB debacle – which saw Nvidia rush to “launch” one of the RTX 4080 models, only to re-launch it as the RTX 4070 Ti after a public backlash. It could be argued that Nvidia enjoys such a comfortable lead that it might not make mistakes (and anti-consumer moves) if the lead is narrower, it is pushing luck and making mistakes (and anti-consumer moves).
However, with Intel and AMD each at 9%, it doesn’t look like Nvidia’s dominance will be seriously challenged anytime soon.
thanks intel
Still, we really shouldn’t give away Intel’s management here. The company, best known for its processors, launched its first Arc discrete gaming GPU in October 2022, so it’s now on par with AMD, which has been selling discrete GPUs for decades, an impressive feat feat.
That’s especially true considering Intel’s launch of its Arc GPU hasn’t been the smoothest, amid rumors of delays and poor performance.
In fact, the Arc GPUs we’re seeing so far offer very good value for money, and instead of trying to compete with Nvidia’s powerful flagship GPUs like the RTX 4080 and 4090, they’re competing with AMD for gamers on tighter budgets.
So successfully splitting up the budget market is bad news for AMD, and while I’m sure Nvidia will be watching Intel’s growth closely, the fact that the company doesn’t seem to care about the budget market means its reign at the top will continue to be relatively easy . Whether this benefits consumers, though, is another matter.
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