Gamers’ shift to AMD’s X3D chips helps boost its desktop CPU share to over 30%, up from 23% last year, says the chip watcher Mercury Research.
Beware, Intel. Thanks to its X3D chips, AMD is continuing to expand in the desktop CPU market.
AMD’s share of desktop CPU shipments reached 32.2% in Q2, a record high and up from 23% a year ago, reported chip tracker Mercury Research.
“The PC gaming market as a whole transitioned to AMD’s new Granite Ridge processors, the X3D versions especially, and that persisted with the second quarter results, which featured robust unit growth for AMD desktop CPUs; along with Intel suffering a shipment drop,” Mercury Research President Dean McCarron states.
AMD reports the numbers translate to the firm having a 39.3% desktop CPU revenue share in Q2.
That said, McCarron continues, AMD has historically shipped more desktop CPUs in the past, but they were lower-end chips. “But with the desktop market and Intel’s shipments shrinking from years ago, share can be higher on fewer units,” he says.
Way back in February, AMD CEO Lisa Su explained that the Ryzen 9800X3D was so well-liked that the firm saw “record desktop channel sell-out in the fourth quarter in a number of regions.” Team Red has since followed up with the Ryzen 9900X3D and 9950X3D, launched in March and optimized for PC gaming. These new X3D chips don’t come cheap, though, at $469 to $700, which is why AMD predicts its revenue market share will be nearly 40%.
AMD’s desktop CPU shipments can rise even further since the company introduced new high-end Threadripper 9000 chips in July. However, in laptops, AMD’s share slipped to 20% in Q2, down from 22.5% in Q1, according to Mercury Research. “This may be due in part to consumer mix-related weakness, and Intel, business-related share gains, typically the first half of the year heavily favors business PCs over consumer,” McCarron says.
