GPU shipments remain strong as gaming boom continues

The quarterly graphics chip report from Jon Peddie Research has arrived. The company found that in Q4 2016 the PC market returned to its normal seasonality curve, this basically means that Q3 is the peak in terms of shipments, with Q4 being flat to a little up. The first quarter of the year is typically flat to a little down and Q2 is the through;.

The data indicates shipments were flat versus the previous quarter, with AMD increasing 10.49 percent, NVIDIA increasing 9.52 percent and Intel decreasing 4.01 percent. In terms of marketshare, AMD increased 1.4 percent and NVIDIA increased 1.5 percent.

Overall these numbers show the general direction of the market but because it includes processors with integrated graphics it doesn't tell us a lot about the discrete graphics card. A more detailed report that focuses specifically on the discrete graphics card market is expected very soon.

The gaming market was the bright spot as especially sales of high-end GPU continue to do well.

Quick highlights:

AMD’s overall unit shipments increased 10.49% quarter-to-quarter, Intel’s total shipments decreased 4.01% from last quarter, and Nvidia’s increased 9.52%.

The attach rate of GPUs (includes integrated and discrete GPUs) to PCs for the quarter was 141% which was down 5.52% from last quarter.

Discrete GPUs were in 35.92% of PCs, which is up 1.23%.

The overall PC market increased 3.96% quarter-to-quarter, and decreased 3.55% year-to-year.

Desktop graphics add-in boards (AIBs) that use discrete GPUs increased 5.60% from last quarter.

Q4'16 saw an increase in tablet shipments from last quarter.