Bottom line: Intel still commands a firm lead in terms of overall CPU market share but efforts from AMD with its Ryzen family have certainly narrowed the gap in recent years. And with only a couple of days to go until the launch of Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, AMD is poised to gain additional ground during the holiday quarter and beyond.
AMD last week reported record revenue of $2.80 billion, an impressive 56 percent increase compared to the same period a year earlier. The financials were anchored by confirmation that AMD was acquiring field-programmable gate array (FPGA) maker Xilinx in a deal valued at $35 billion.
With such a busy week, you'd be forgiven for overlooking the ground AMD has covered in the desktop segment in a relatively short amount of time.
According to distribution statistics from Statista, AMD's processor market share hit 37.3 percent in the third quarter. That's the highest it's been since the beginning of the survey period, which started in 2012. At 62.6 percent, Intel's market share is the lowest it has been during the same period.
Steam's hardware and software survey, meanwhile, reveals that 25.79 percent of Windows gamers were running a CPU from AMD in October compared to 74.21 percent who were using a chip from rival Intel. Over the trailing five months (since June), Steam data reveals that the pendulum has ever so slightly been swinging in favor of AMD in this category.
Data from benchmarking app PassMark, meanwhile, more closely mirrors what Statista reported. In Q1 2020 (the most updated figures), AMD's total CPU market share checked in at 36.3 percent compared to Intel's 63.7 percent share.
Masthead credit: Petr Svoboda