GPU Shipments Rebound In A Big Way To End The Post-Covid Black Death Phenomenon
By the year 2026, there will be nearly 5 billion graphics chips sitting pretty in PC systems, a figure that includes integrated graphics as found on many AMD and Intel processors. As for discrete GPUs, including add-in boards that gamers jam into their PCI Express slots, market penetration in the PC is expected to achieve 30% within the next five years, according to Jon Peddie Research.
These and other stats are part of a fresh GPU shipment report titled, "The post-Covid black death is over." The crux of the JPR's title is that GPU shipments for the PC shot up a "whopping 16.8%" compared to the previous quarter, and only "decreased a mild 5%" year-over-year. Overall, GPUs are finding their footing again with two sequential quarters of growth.
There are some caveats, however. One of them is that while the overall GPU shipment figures look impressive, the tally includes iGPUs that may go unused.
Even so, JPR notes that iGPU shipments "drastically" shifted the market share breakdown. Looking at the year-over-year figures, Intel went from a 72% GPU market share in the third quarter of 2022 to 64% in the third quarter of 2023. NVIDIA. meanwhile, jumped from 16% to 19%, while AMD went from 12% to 17% over the past year.
As far as shipments go, all three players saw gains, though none bigger than AMD at 36.6%, followed by NVIDIA at 25.2% and Intel at 10.4%.
While iGPUs played a significant role, so did add-in boards, which increased by a staggering 37.4% over the previous quarter. That brings us to the next caveat, which is the reason for the rebound.
"The GPU and PC market have had some violent roller-coaster rides over time: the crypto mining swing, the 2008 recession, the Covid shutdown," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. "All of them brought the PC market down a notch, and always the market rebounded, but not quite as high as before. And every time, overenthusiastic forecasters tried to read into it their fantasies and desires."
"This bounceback is no different and is being overpraised, when it largely reflects a cleaning out and straightening up of the distribution channel. All through the last three quarters, add-in boards sold, not at the normal volumes, and albeit with complaints about prices, but sold, nonetheless. The mistake is the constant search for sensationalism. It’s fatiguing," Peddie continued.
Tell us how you really feel, sir! Fantasies and desires notwithstanding, Peddie is saying to temper your enthusiasm over all the pretty figures in his latest GPU report. At the same time, however, it will be interesting to see what the next few quarters bring as NVIDIA gets to ready to roll out its Super refresh. There's also ballooning demand for GPUs for AI chores.
