AMD cutting deeply into Intel's market share across desktop, mobile, and server segments

[DPennington]

Why it matters: AMD's Ryzen desktop and mobile CPUs and their EPYC server CPUs have continued the momentum they began gaining in 2017. The release of market share data from 2018 shows that AMD's market share across all three segments is the highest it's been since at least 2014. With new releases and new architecture right around the corner, AMD looks positioned to continue to take market share from Intel, and increase the size of their footprint across the CPU space.

With AMD on the precipice of releasing next-gen Ryzen CPUs, market share statistics unveiled this week show that current-gen Ryzen and EPYC chips have already made significant gains in the server, desktop, and mobile spaces.

Since Q4 2017, AMD's server market share has increased four-fold, from 0.8 percent unit share to 3.2 percent unit share in Q4 2018. This can be attributed to the rise of the EPYC line of server CPUs, AMD's first major server release since Opteron in 2003.

Both desktop and mobile segments also saw significant lifts in year-over-year market share, with desktop climbing to 15.8 percent on the back of the Ryzen 2000-series CPUs released in 2018. AMD's mobile processors more recently hit the market, but have seen growth in adoption by major brands, with Dell, HP, and Lenovo all adding Ryzen-powered laptops to their 2018 lineups. This has resulted in an impressive 12.1 percent unit share for notebooks.

All three of these segments are enjoying their highest market share levels since at least 2014, with notebook share not reaching this level since 2013. After essentially being dormant for five years, AMD finally has given Intel significant competition on these fronts. AMD still has a long way to go to climb back to equal share with Intel, a position is hasn't enjoyed since the second quarter of 2006.

While this is good news on the server-side, it's still a far cry from the 22 percent server market share also captured by AMD in 2006.

Third-gen Ryzen processors are right around the corner, with an expected release date of mid-2019. The flagship Ryzen 9 3850X is rumored to offer 16 cores and 32 threads running at 5.1 GHz with a price tag of only $499, while other Ryzen 3000 offerings will directly compete with Intel's 9th gen CPUs at significantly lower costs. Supposedly, the entry level Ryzen 3 3300 will pack six cores and 12 threads for only $99. If true, that's the same core and thread count as the 8700K for roughly a third of the price.

The first two generations of Ryzen have been wildly successful, offering a price-to-performance proposition that is significantly better than Intel's. While the raw performance of Ryzen has thus far lagged slightly behind, AMD has been able to make high core counts affordable for mainstream users, and as a result has begun to win back significant market share. If the rumors surrounding Ryzen 3000 prove true, AMD will turn up the pressure on Intel even further, and likely continue to make gains in the desktop market.

On the server side, Opteron should be used as a cautionary tale for the future of EPYC. Opteron burst out of the gate in 2003, capturing 22 percent market share from Intel's Xeon between 2003 and 2006 before stagnating. Xeon received iterative, generational updates for the following decade, while Opteron was largely neglected by AMD and fell further and further behind. Server share bottomed out at only 0.6 percent in 2016 before the release of EPYC.

Next-gen EPYC, code-named Rome, is on the horizon and using a 7 nanometer manufacturing process. Rome promises to bring better efficiency, more cores, and higher clocks, and threatens to take even more server share from Intel. Intel's former CEO Brian Krzanich told Barron's in mid-2018 that Intel would not lose server share to AMD in the second half of 2018, and Intel's job was to not allow AMD to capture "15-20 percent market share." The way AMD is trending, 15 percent share in a few years' time seems like a distinct possibility.

AMD's emergence as a player in the CPU space in 2019 has wide-ranging benefits for consumers, and as long as they continue to threaten Intel's market share, the prices and products from both companies will only continue to improve. Now if only AMD could start making the same gains against Nvidia on the GPU side of the business.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78664-amd-cutting-deeply-intel-market-share-across-desktop.html

 

[amstech]

No doubt about it AMD's Ryzen has single handily saved them from a scary industrial situation. Look how cocky and ridiculous Intel got with their pricing right before and during. I am and will always be fans of Intel and Nvidia, but man oh man I love nothing more them to see them get kicked right in the pants once in awhile.
The i9 and RTX pricing is greed 101.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

This is just a temporary thing.

The Cryptocurrency rise and fall has caused unanticipated circumstances which the market finds itself in.

Rest assured, Intel (and Nvidia) will be riding high - once again - dominating - sooner than later.

 

[Evernessince]

No doubt about it AMD's Ryzen has single handily saved them from a scary industrial situation. Look how cocky and ridiculous Intel got with their pricing right before and during. I am and will always be fans of Intel and Nvidia, but man oh man I love nothing more them to see them get kicked right in the pants once in awhile.
The i9 and RTX pricing is greed 101.

Yeah, AMD likely would have been gone if Ryzen wasn't good. It's pretty clear Raja wasn't going to lead them anywhere on the GPU side either.

This is just a temporary thing.

The Cryptocurrency rise and fall has caused unanticipated circumstances which the market finds itself in.

Rest assured, Intel (and Nvidia) will be riding high - once again - dominating - sooner than later.

Nvidia is riding high, that hasn't changed. The only bad things to happen to Nvidia recently are self inflicted.

Crypt-currency has nothing to do with Intel loosing CPU marketshare. Intel lost marketshare because they now competing for it instead of being the only choice.

 

[ZackL04]

So, is this saying in 2017 amd had .8% server share. As in, of 1000 servers 8 of them were AMD based? That cant be right, right?

 

[DPennington]

So, is this saying in 2017 amd had .8% server share. As in, of 1000 servers 8 of them were AMD based? That cant be right, right?

I believe that means the percentage of server chips sold IN THAT QUARTER. That's an educated guess based on the use of "unit share" and not "market share" in the table - it's proving difficult to confirm that given these are numbers from AMD. If that's correct, then 8 out of every 1000 server CPUs sold in Q4'17 was an AMD chip. That's easier to believe when you consider the only offering from AMD at that point was the Opteron. AMD may as well have had nothing to sell.

 

[dirtyferret]

Great, competition is better for the consumer regardless of the brand you root for.

 

[Toju Mikie]

AMD has been doing really well in the mid-range market for DIY CPU sales. The #1 and #2 best selling CPUs on Amazon are the Ryzen 5 2600 and 2600x, number one selling graphics card on Amazon is RX 580, followed by GTX 1060 and then GTX 2060.

 

[Lew Zealand]

This is just a temporary thing.

The Cryptocurrency rise and fall has caused unanticipated circumstances which the market finds itself in.

Rest assured, Intel (and Nvidia) will be riding high - once again - dominating - sooner than later.

That's just as much Intel wishful thinking as the AMD fanboys with their still vaporware Ryzen2 and Navi parts. It's all just a river of internet blogorrhea until products are shipped and Steve trades sleep for blue bars.

 

[ZackL04]

I believe that means the percentage of server chips sold IN THAT QUARTER. That's an educated guess based on the use of "unit share" and not "market share" in the table - it's proving difficult to confirm that given these are numbers from AMD. If that's correct, then 8 out of every 1000 server CPUs sold in Q4'17 was an AMD chip. That's easier to believe when you consider the only offering from AMD at that point was the Opteron. AMD may as well have had nothing to sell.

That makes sense, man thats terrible too. How do they make it?

 

[DPennington]

That makes sense, man thats terrible too. How do they make it?

They were in serious trouble before Ryzen. Their stock was in the tank. Ryzen was likely make-or-break for them. The relative success of the RX GPUs helped too, at least compared to the R7/9 cards. But yeah, I think you're right, they may not have made it if Ryzen was a flop. It likely saved AMD.

 

[iamcts]

This is just a temporary thing.

The Cryptocurrency rise and fall has caused unanticipated circumstances which the market finds itself in.

Rest assured, Intel (and Nvidia) will be riding high - once again - dominating - sooner than later.

That's just as much Intel wishful thinking as the AMD fanboys with their still vaporware Ryzen2 and Navi parts. It's all just a river of internet blogorrhea until products are shipped and Steve trades sleep for blue bars.

All of AMD's recent CPU launches have been a huge successes. Claiming Zen 2 is "vaporware" is a stretch.

But don't worry, the panic that's setting into Intel fanboys will continue to be the new norm

 

[cliffordcooley]

But don't worry, the panic that's setting into Intel fanboys will continue to be the new norm

Who is panicking? My 2600K still does what I need it to do. When the time comes I will pick another build based on the market at that time. Oh and it will likely be Intel regardless of value. So does that at all sound like a panic?

 

[RotorGlow]

Amazing people still buy intel products after all the scandals repressing AMD from even getting their products out to people...

I'm all for product vs product, but playing dirty for 40 years bribing isn't fair to the little guys trying to get market share.

 

[xxLCxx]

Amazing people still buy intel products after all the scandals repressing AMD from even getting their products out to people...

I'm all for product vs product, but playing dirty for 40 years bribing isn't fair to the little guys trying to get market share.

Not only that. Intel keeps benchmarking the products without Spectre (Meltdown) mitigations. When you run it at home, you’ll experience a drastic slowdown – and there are still more Spectre vulnerabilities to come. That’s Intel playing you for a sucker.

 

[captaincranky]

Dude, @DPennington you had to know this would start a fanboi firestorm, didn't ya? (Oh, you say you did that on purpose)?

 

[Dimitrios]

Something tells me we MIGHT see the old 1990's and early 2000's dirty tactics from INTEL. I hope AMD lawyers are watching INTEL with a fine comb, INTEL really only made it this far because of shady monopoly tactics and since they have to play fair AMD will have breathing room and the advantage.

Anyone over 30 will know what I'm saying.

INTEL'S response : Pour more sugar in Lisa Su's gas tank before work, Slash her tires, steal more AMD workers like they did the last 6-12 months, bribe companies, etc. ;-)

 

[captaincranky]

...[ [... I hope AMD lawyers are watching INTEL with a fine comb,...[ ]....

Mixing metaphors much?

 

[cliffordcooley]

INTEL really only made it this far because of shady monopoly tactics

So you are saying Intel would have gone bankrupt otherwise? Yeah, Dream on! Go back to your AMD board meeting.

 

[trparky]

Good, I'm happy for AMD. Hell, AMD was more than likely the reason why the 8700K exists today. For the longest time it's been nothing more than just another 4C/8T i7, again and again. Yawn. Then AMD came along with Ryzen and then Intel actually had to do something new, hence the 8700K with 6C/12T and the 9900K with its 8C/16T. After years of having a 3570K the 8700K finally made me sit up and take notice.

My 2600K still does what I need it to do.

That's what I thought of my old 3570K. Upgrading to the 8700K was a serious upgrade, like night and day difference. More cores, more threads, everything's faster. And not only that but I now have access to new storage tech like NVMe SSDs.

 

[Dimitrios]

So you are saying Intel would have gone bankrupt otherwise? Yeah, Dream on! Go back to your AMD board meeting.

You read it wrong. I never said INTEL would go bankrupt if it wasn't for their dirty tactics. They "succeeded" and stayed number one because of the dirty tactics they pulled. I use to work a BESTBUY when I was a young teen and our manager told us they made more money pushing INTEL products. He would watch our numbers and would pull one of us into the room and ask us why we were not selling enough INTEL products vs AMD. Yes this was back in 2002-2004 when AMD had better products than INTEL. BESTBUY was getting some sort incentive from INTEL and they lost me and I was one of the best workers, I could sell $99 AIO printers with $99 warranty plans. I also worked for LEXMARK as a sales rep in that store years later and they were still pulling that shadiness.

 

[cliffordcooley]

You read it wrong.

How else could Intel not make it this far? That insinuates they no longer exist. It has been a ruff road for AMD, but they made it this far. Anyway for the most part I will agree with you.

 

[seeprime]

Good, I'm happy for AMD. Hell, AMD was more than likely the reason why the 8700K exists today. For the longest time it's been nothing more than just another 4C/8T i7, again and again. Yawn. Then AMD came along with Ryzen and then Intel actually had to do something new, hence the 8700K with 6C/12T and the 9900K with its 8C/16T. After years of having a 3500K the 8700K finally made me sit up and take notice.

My 2600K still does what I need it to do.

That's what I thought of my old 3500K. Upgrading to the 8700K was a serious upgrade, like night and day difference. More cores, more threads, everything's faster. And not only that but I now have access to new storage tech like NVMe SSDs.

The NVMe upgrade is where most of today's speed improvements come from. They're about five times faster than SATA SSD's and ten to fifteen times faster than hard disk drives. A Ryzen 3 2200G system based machine is wicked fast with a high end NVMe SSD installed.

 

[DPennington]

Dude, @DPennington you had to know this would start a fanboi firestorm, didn't ya? (Oh, you say you did that on purpose)?

no way, never saw this one coming

Cranky, I think people have reason to be upset on both sides. Not to mix metaphors, but you know what they say: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me slow and steady, then shame on the race.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Intel trashed for 5% IPC improvements...
AMD praised for 3% IPC improvement.
*smh*