Graphics chip market seeing big changes
To quote the iconic 1960s drummer Buddy Miles, the graphics chip market is "going through them changes."
As Nvidia falters, Advanced Micro Devices' ATI graphics unit is on the rise, spurred by "radical" shifts in the market, according to Mercury Research, which tracks the market for GPUs or graphics processing units.
"AMD surpassed Nvidia this quarter in overall shipments...(and) is now the leading supplier of standalone GPU and of notebook standalone GPUs, and the second largest supplier of graphics solutions overall," the Mercury Research report says. Intel is the longstanding No. 1 supplier because it includes the graphics function in its chipsets, which accompany its processors, and more recently is building the function into the central processing unit or CPU.
There are, of course, good reasons why AMD knocked Nvidia out of the No. 2 spot. AMD is gaining in laptop share just as the total mobile graphics market surpasses the total desktop graphics market for the first time, according to Mercury. In particular, AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5000 series (used in both laptops and desktops) saw a "a huge burst" in shipments in the second quarter, Mercury said.
And the composition of the mobile GPU market is changing. "The mobile integrated graphics CPU market...has surpassed both the mobile standalone graphics market and the mobile integrated chip set market for the first time." Translation: the CPU now subsumes the function of the GPU, due to Intel's newest mobile silicon based on the Core i3 and i5 processors. These chips take the GPU function--which had been separate--and combine it with the CPU.
How does AMD fit into this change? Its graphics chips have been "closely paired" with Intel's Core i3 processors, which have "grown explosively," Mercury said. "This has lifted AMD's mobile GPU shipments substantially in the quarter." ATI graphics is also being paired more with AMD processors, according to Mercury. A trend, in turn, connected to a movement toward "dual graphics" laptops. Here, a discrete GPU is paired with Intel's new Core i3 or i5 CPUs or an AMD processor.
"Talks with (PC makers) indicated that many are working on dual-graphics systems," according to Mercury. How does the type of pairing work? When the laptop is on battery power, for example, it defaults to power-efficient Intel (or AMD) integrated graphics. When more performance is needed, the system switches to discrete graphics. HP's Pavilion dv7t, for example, offers a switchable graphics option, based on the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics chip.
Tides could turn
Though AMD is faring well in this market, Nvidia is by no means absent. Apple's recent refresh of its MacBook and MacBook Pros include switchable graphics, which toggles between the Intel and Nvidia graphics.
And Nvidia's downturn may be temporary, according to Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury. "There are a couple of things going on with Nvidia that are independent of the whole AMD (market) share transfer," he said in a phone interview. "On the integrated front, Nvidia does not have an Intel (chipset) bus license for the new processors. So, their Intel products are dropping off," he said. McCarron is referring to the legal skirmishing with Intel that prohibits Nvidia from making chipsets for Intel's Core i series of processors.
"And in the desktop standalone space, Nvidia has a DX-11 (DirectX 11) high-end part, but most of the market share gets determined by low-end and mid-range parts and AMD introduced their low-end and mid-range (DirectX 11) back in Q1," he said. "Nvidia's low-end and mid-range parts aren't out yet. They're coming out this quarter." DirectX 11 is a graphics technology used in Windows 7 to speed up certain multimedia and game-centric operations.
"The other thing that's going on right now that hasn't gotten enough attention is that the attach rate of mobile standalone graphics in notebooks has been skyrocketing," McCarron said. "The net of it is, that market is growing even though we've got CPU integrated graphics happening. And that's an opportunity for Nvidia," McCarron added.
And a word to the wise: PC makers are notoriously fickle about graphics chips, as demonstrated over the years, with occasional wild swings in market share between AMD and Nvidia from quarter to quarter or year to year. This time around it's AMD that hit the market sweet spot, but the next quarter or next year could see Nvidia back on top.
"This sort of ping-pong in market share has taken place several times in the past," McCarron said.
Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
things take time, if we could shrink processes whenever we want
wouldn't we have 11nm chips or even nanobots by now?
Nvidia pisses me off to no end with their crappy manufacturing process that leads to problems a year or so down the road. ATI is the king of longevity in my opinion. And intel is so expensive YIKES !
Yeah, but ATI makes up for that with crappy drivers...
Yeah man, ATI drivers suck. I just wish I could have an ATI/Nvidia baby, with hardware and Nvidia drivers. That would make me happy.
How do you know AMD is second rate, have you been made privy to their warranty and tech support statistics?
I meant they are second rate when it comes to performance, its a well known fact Intel processors are way more powerful.
@truthiness79
Apple switched to ATI. AMD doesnt make discrete GPUs under its own brand name. And I know AMD is way ahead in Price/Performance over Intel. Thats why I said when compared to their Intel equivalent. Basically, ignore price, and tell me which processor gets 1st place, and which gets 2nd place. See what I mean, and since we're talking Macs, that are way overpriced, you atleast want to get the more powerful processor.
Another thing, ATI does not make second rate hardware. Their graphics cards are epic. I own one. ATI's drivers however arent that nice.
But what if your ATI/Nvidia baby had Nvidia hardware and ATI drivers?
I'd cry.
Nvidia makes horrible drivers.
Way more powerful? Which ones? Those at the top - for which you have to sell your house?
Clock vs clock Intel might be ahead, but the thing that average customer is after - is performance per dollar. And around the sweet 100$ price point Intel and AMD are neck to neck. And if you factor in the mobo prices - Intel does not seem that attractive (and classy) anymore.
P.S. Don't forget P4 - back then people did not mind 1 ghz clock difference.
1) nVidia drivers are superior. There are no two ways about it. Catalyst is haphazard at best. The older drivers tend to be more stable, but using them causes problems with Flash or with updated versions of Windows etc. I still can't understand why the latest versions of Catalyst for Windows 7, no longer allow for games to scale to screen if they are running lower than the set resolution of the OS. It is just one huge pain and nVidia doesn't cause their users to suffer that way.
2) PhysX. Sure it is some what of a gimmick, but it is proprietary technology that does offer some visual advantages. Currently, there is no way to gain optimal performance out of a Radeon, if you turn PhysX features on, in a game. In many cases, you can't even activate the PhysX option unless you have an nVidia card (or a separate PhysX card, which won't always work if your main GPU is a Radeon...or a non-nVidia GPU).
Still, nVidia isn't helped by the fact that two of the three major gaming platforms utilize AMD graphics processors (Wii, Xbox 360).
- by graig78 August 1, 2010 7:44 PM PDT
- part of the reason, dispite nvidias chips being good. many of the cards are crummy. example. i got my brother 3 different cards in a row for nvidia and all 3 fans failed within a month. nvidia needs to worry more about who is selling their equipment, and what level of quality is actually reaching the customer. they probably need to work with a few suppliers, and more closely monitor the quality of their cards. the chips are only as good as the card you put them on.
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