Netbooks boost graphics chip shipments
Buoyed by Netbook sales, shipments of Intel graphics chips surged and Advanced Micro Devices gained on Nvidia in the third quarter.
Third-quarter shipments of graphics processors jumped 21.2 percent over the second quarter, according to market researcher Jon Peddie Research. Graphics chips drive the images produced on PC users' screens.
A total of 119.45 million units were shipped in the third quarter, exceeding the record 111 million units that shipped in the third quarter of 2008, according to Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. "So the market has caught up with, and exceeded, last year's highs. The crash of fall 2008 is now behind us," he said in a statement.
The third quarter exceeded a robust second quarter. "Q2 was already a great quarter clearly signaling the holidays will be robust for PCs and the industry in general," Peddie said.
AMD gained on discrete graphics chip leader Nvidia in quarter-to-quarter growth.
(Credit: Jon Peddie Research)AMD showed the biggest jump in quarter-to-quarter growth at 30 percent, followed by Intel at 21 percent. But Intel dominates raw shipments. "Intel shipped the most parts at 63 million, over twice as many as its nearest competitor Nvidia," according to Peddie, who said Intel had a 53 percent share of the market in the third quarter. Nvidia was second with 24.9 percent, followed by AMD with 19.8 percent.
Surging Netbook shipments are behind the big Intel numbers. Integrated graphics in notebooks, which includes Netbooks, increased 27 percent over the second quarter. Integrated graphics are built into supporting Intel silicon called chipsets.
"Netbooks will remain popular but they will not have the high market share they had during the recession when they were just introduced. Rather, consumers are expected to 'buy up' in the next quarter," according to Peddie.
Fourth-quarter shipments may not be as strong as the third quarter, however. "The channel is full...That suggests that while Q4 is typically a good quarter for PCs, the quarter-to-quarter growth in Q4 may not be as robust as Q3. Graphics are a great leading indicator. The graphics go in before the PC is built or shipped," Peddie said.
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
or another approach:
So 52.7% of computers sold this quarter are handicapped? (in terms of graphics)
hic-a-doo-la
As for the rest, if it drives a display and paints pictures on the screen, it is a graphics chip. Not everyone is a game head and most of the world does not use gaming performance of their computer as a litmus test. In fact some of us don't give a damn about gaming on our computers at all, we have more useful tasks in mind for them and play our games where they should be played, on consoles designed specifically for the purpose.
- by bluemist9999 October 27, 2009 4:31 AM PDT
- In my experience, the integrated Intel graphics chipset works well in netbooks. Keep in mind that netbooks are NOT gaming machines, hence don't need any 3-D graphics capabilities. Even if they had a high end graphics chip from nVidia or ATI, the netbook's CPU just won't cut it for any remotely modern games.
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- by ProDigit October 27, 2009 8:37 AM PDT
- I could not agree more!
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(8 Comments)However, if I wanted to buy a desktop or laptop, I would also stay far away from Intel's integrated "graphics" chipsets, since I want a machine that can play modern games (albeit probably not with all of their graphics bells and whistles enabled).
If you're just browsing the Web, writing documents and doing other lightweight stuff, the Intel chipsets work well. If you want to do 3-D games, they don't come close to cutting it.
But there are many netbooks which are running Windows 7 Starter Edition on shelves now. Keep in mind the Starter Edition:
- Does NOT allow you to customize the desktop (you'd better like their default wallpaper) or sound schemes
- Does NOT support built-in DVD playback (download VLC, a free open-source DVD player) for that
- Does NOT support the nifty Aero glass UI (although the Intel chipsets can barely handle these, anyways)
- DOES allow you to run more than 3 programs
The graphics chip in netbooks is slightly too small for serious gaming; but you have to know that the Intel GMA that came with the first generations of netbooks only needed to steer a 800x480pix screen!
At such a resolution most games run fluidly (if not limited by the CPU).
The second gen improved the screen resolution, but did not improve the GPU. In other words, most games could run fine upto 800x600 reso.
The 1024x600 reso was too high for the GPU, and intel refused to rework their GPU's.
That could change, with the upcoming Atom 2 chip platform, with GPU, memory controller and CPU on one package.
That graphics chip will most likely give you fluid DX9 framerates for screens upto 1024x600 resolution as is with most netbooks.
Another limitation of it is due to Intel and MS. They where responsible for forcing netbooks to have no more than 1 slot of RAM, which is good for battery life, but bad for performance.
2 slots could mean upto 30% more performance in gaming!
What you need is an ION netbook. A netbook powered by an Atom and NVidia graphics chip. It has sufficient power to run some games fluidly at resolutions greater than standard netbook screens (eg: 1366x768 resolutions).
XP so far is the netbook's best OS, I don't know what you hate so much about it, but it runs fast, light, and saves plenty of battery!
The upcoming Win7 netbooks most likely will not have better battery life under use.
Idle powerconsumption of 7 is better than XP, but when a netbook is in use, yes, then XP still has the better hand!