Sales of desktop discrete graphics cards declined quarter-over-quarter, but improved year-over-year in Q1 2024, a recent report from Jon Peddie Research (JPR) shows. However, the performance of the two leading suppliers of standalone graphics processors was completely different: despite the market decline, Nvidia increased its sales and gained share (to 88%), whereas AMD's shipments decreased and the share fell sharply (to 12%). Both vendors are well-represented in the ranks of the best graphics cards available today.
The industry shipped 8.7 million desktop add-in-boards in the first quarter, a decline from 9.5 million units in the previous quarter. Despite this quarterly drop, the market experienced a robust 39.2% increase in shipments compared to the same period last year, according to JPR's report.
Nvidia solidified its dominance with an 88% market share, growing by a whopping 8% from the previous quarter. Shipments of Nvidia's GPUs for desktops totaled 7.66 million units, up from 7.6 million in Q4 2023 and around 5.26 million in Q1 2023.
By contrast, AMD saw a 7% decrease in market share quarter-over-quarter but a modest increase in its yearly market share as the company's shipments fell by 41% from the previous quarter, but rose by 39% compared to the previous year. The company shipped around 1.04 million desktop discrete GPUs in Q1 2024, down from 1.81 million in the previous quarter and up from 0.75 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Intel, which entered the AIB market in Q3 2022 with its Arc A770 and A750 models continues to struggle for a foothold against established competitors like Nvidia and AMD. The company's shipments in Q1 2024 were negligible, based on data from Jon Peddie Research.
"We and the industry have been hoping for a return to seasonality, which was the hallmark of the PC industry for so many decades," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. The research firm head went on to explain that the GPU market was strongly disrupted by the recession in 2007-2008, and never fully recovered before the ensuing cryto-craze, COVID pandemic, and the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war.
"In 2023, we saw four quarters of welcomed growth, and when Q1 2024 was down a bit, no one panicked, as it looked like a return to seasonality — Q1 always used to be flat to down," commented Peddie. "Therefore, one would expect Q2 2024, a traditional quarter, to also be down. But, all the vendors are predicting a growth quarter, mostly driven by AI training systems in hyperscalers. Whereas AI trainers use a GPU, the demand for them can steal parts from the gaming segment. So, for Q2, we expect to see a flat to low gaming AIB result and another increase in AI trainer GPU shipments. The new normality is no normality."
