AMD gained market share even though the total number of boards sold went down.
Jon Peddie Research (JPR) says shipments of graphics add-in boards (AIBs) declined 5.4% in the second quarter of 2013, on a quarter-to-quarter (sequential) basis. Year-over-year the drop was almost identical, at 5.2%.
The overall PC desktop market declined 3.7% quarter-to-quarter including double-attach—the adding of a second (or third) AIB to a system with integrated processor graphics—and to a lesser extent, dual AIBs in performance desktop machines using either AMD’s Crossfire or Nvidia’s SLI technology.
On a year-to-year basis JPR says total AIB shipments during 2Q13 dropped 5.2%, less than the overall desktop graphics decline of 9.3% or the total PC graphics decline of 12.8% overall. GPUs are traditionally a leading indicator of the market because a GPU goes into every system before it is shipped; most of the PC vendors are guiding down to flat for 3Q13.
JPR found that AIB shipments during 2Q13 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, but the drop was less than the 10-year average.
Results by vendor
Total AIB shipments decreased this quarter to 14.0 million units. AMD’s quarter-to-quarter total desktop AIB unit shipments increased 0.8%. Nvidia’s quarter-to-quarter unit shipments decreased 8.9%. Nvidia continues to hold a dominant market share position at 62%. Figures for the other suppliers were flat to slightly declining.
The change from quarter to quarter was slightly less than last year. Quarter-to-quarter percentage changes are shown in the accompanying table.
The AIB market now has just four chip (GPU) suppliers, who also build and sell AIBs. The primary suppliers of GPUs are AMD and Nvidia. There are 52 AIB suppliers, the AIB OEM customers of the GPU suppliers, which they call “partners.” There are more than 51 companies selling privately branded AIBs worldwide, about a dozen PC suppliers that offer AIBs as part of a system, and/or as an option, and some that offer AIBs as separate aftermarket products.
JPR’s AIB Report tracks computer add-in graphics boards, which carry discrete graphics chips. AIBs are used in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, and other devices such as scientific instruments. They may be sold directly to customers as aftermarket products, or they may be factory installed. In all cases, AIBs represent the higher end of the graphics industry using discrete chips and private high-speed memory, as compared to the integrated GPUs in CPUs that share slower system memory.
JPR has been tracking AIB shipments quarterly since 1987; the volume of those boards peaked in 1999, reaching 114 million units.
