bit-tech.net

ATI tops graphics market

Published on 30th July 2010 by Gareth Halfacree

AMD's ATI is now the market leader in discrete graphics, with rival Nvidia dropping to second place.

AMD's purchase of graphics specialist ATI looks to be paying off, with a report claiming that the company has beaten rival Nvidia to a majority share of the discrete graphics market.

The report, prepared by Mercury Research and discussed over on ARN, claims that in the second quarter of this year AMD took 51.1 percent of the discrete graphics market, bumping rival Nvidia down to second place with 48.8 percent.

It's a surprising reversal of fortunes when compared to the same figures for the first quarter - in which Nvidia held a whopping 57.8 percent market share to AMD's relatively paltry 42.1 percent.

Mercury Research's Dean McCarron claims that the dramatic change in the market came about due to AMD's decision to launch budget-friendly DirectX 11 cards while Nvidia concentrated on the high-end.

While top-performance cards - usually costing upwards of £300 - are where the profits are to be found, McCarron claims that they have "little impact" on the market, with volume sales of budget cards where the true battleground lies. Nvidia's decision to delay the manufacture of low-price DirectX 11 cards in order to concentrate on its high-end products could well have cost it the market majority.

Things continue to favour the red team following the news that Apple's latest iMac desktop machines would be shipping with ATI graphics rather than the previously-used Nvidia cards - a small but significant win, which is probably worth more in in terms of marketing value than actual sales.

One thing is certain: if Nvidia doesn't want to become the underdog, it's going to have to buck its ideas up and start taking back some of its lost market share quickly.

Does AMD's recent success - and rapid rise to the top of the market - make sense, or are you struggling to understand what the company is doing better than Nvidia? Share your thoughts over in the forums.

40 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

adam_bagpuss 30th July 2010, 10:28

congrats to ATI/AMD to be honest.

Even when they have had the best cards Nvidia still had the majority because average joe bloggs was wowed by PC world and the latest graphics on maximum extreme high resolutions all powered with a 8400GS lol.

Its about time, ATI has done a great drop since the introduction of the 4 series and brought about some excellent competition which has forced nvidia to respond.

crazyceo 30th July 2010, 10:48

All that market share but still can't make a profit! Shame they wont keep that share either!

Salty Wagyu 30th July 2010, 11:23

hmm, I think Nvidia will overtake it back soon with the sales of 460s happening right now, seeing how popular they are at the moment at being the best mid-range card around.

technogiant 30th July 2010, 11:37

The 460 is a great card and a great price.....but that is because Nvidia is selling it virtually at a loss just to reclaim market share, even though the card has received great reviews many reports state that 460 sales are slow, in any event thats not a sustainable position and one that ATi has plenty of room to counter with a price cut.....then of course Southern Islands ATi 6000 series will be out in the next few months.
The 460 may give a temporary positive "blip" but the overall trend is and will continue down, just wait for AMD's fusion products to hit Nvidia's low/mid range sales.

amacieli 30th July 2010, 11:41

Profit > market share. Article somewhat meaningless from a corporate/shareholder perpsective, no?

Chocobollz 30th July 2010, 12:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyceo
All that market share but still can't make a profit! Shame they wont keep that share either!

Is it just me or you always says "shame shame shame" just to make something/someone looks silly? It seems a habit of yours to make something positive as negative. So what about they're not making profit? Even If they're really not, you should've thanked them because they're still competing and innovating even with a loss! Will you do the same if you're their CEO's? Nah, I don't think so. Maybe you'll just filed bankruptcy and say, "Shame we don't have the money!".

Oh and they makes the green goblin you-know-who to rethink their strategy of milking their customers to death. It's because of ATI we all now could enjoy the lastest tech without costing you a fortune.

crazyceo 30th July 2010, 12:10

And your point was?

Denis_iii 30th July 2010, 12:17

I'm not surprised ATI has taken the market, they've done a cracking job and deserve it. I hope they continue to grow fast and push there open standards hard as I'm sick of nvidia's proprietory cuda and physX which should be platform independant.

I hope ATI brings on a price cut soon else I'll be forced to pick up 2 Nvidia 460's for SLI.

technogiant 30th July 2010, 12:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyceo
All that market share but still can't make a profit! Shame they wont keep that share either!

Is that for AMD as a whole? I'm sure if you looked at the ATI division independantly it would be in profit, we all know AMD's cpu division is in a rut and dragging things down (hopefully to change with fusion and bulldozer products on the horizon)

Krayzie_B.o.n.e. 30th July 2010, 13:09

Congratulations to ATi. You have once again slayed the evil green empire.

With HD 6000 series just around the corner all you gotta do is drop the prices on the HD 5850 to hold off the GTX 460.

I'm still dreaming of a HD5890 1ghz 1536mb 384 bit

Kúsař 30th July 2010, 13:21

Judging by Steam HW survey - nVidia was living off it's succesful GF8 & 9 series. Radeons 4 & 5 series are much more succesful compared to it's nVidia counterparts(GT200, 400). Though it's been only a few weeks since nVidia launched decent GT460 GPUs which might change the situation a bit. At least there's nice GPU and price war to watch, ideal situation for gamers...

battles_atlas 30th July 2010, 13:27

Man I love these 'market analysts'. How made do they get paid to spend an hour a day surfing a couple of tech websites?

"Mercury Research's Dean McCarron claims that the dramatic change in the market came about due to AMD's decision to launch budget-friendly DirectX 11 cards while Nvidia concentrated on the high-end."

Hmmm, yes. They were also probably slightly aided by the fact that nvidia spent 6 months of last year with no products on sale due to a massive logistics/fab cockup, and by the fact that ATI have had clearly superior technology for the last couple of years. I understand that you probably took the day off for a round of golf before you read about that stuff though.

battles_atlas 30th July 2010, 13:29

How much* obviously.

Why can't comment sections include edit functions anymore? Did the coalition pass some law that I missed?

Loot3r 30th July 2010, 13:32

i have owned many cards from both these companies and its been like this from the start!
Nvidia>ATI
Nvidia<ATI
And as a customer i cant be more happy. The only difference is that ATI came back from a very bad fall very quickly and that to me is a great achievement! May the best card win!

Psytek 30th July 2010, 14:07

You can fudge statistics to make anyone look like they are on top. Beating Nvidia in a market they don't seem to care about is a rather pointless victory. It's like skoda saying they are better than ferrari because they sell more low end vehicles... ferrari would just laugh at them.

Fizzl 30th July 2010, 14:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by battles_atlas
How much* obviously.

Why can't comment sections include edit functions anymore? Did the coalition pass some law that I missed?

You can still edit just view it in the forums instead of the news pages.

Redbeaver 30th July 2010, 14:30

congratz to ATI! this is coming from a customer who long for a good competition...

damn u ATI! this is coming from the nvidia fanboi inside of me....

but overall tho...

good going ATI!

robots 30th July 2010, 14:42

I bet it was because I just bought one which tipped the scales.

aoakley 30th July 2010, 14:56

51:49%? Given Nvidia's uninspiring and underperforming product range until very recently, I'm surprised that it is that close. I don't know *anyone* who knows what they are doing who has bought Nvidia in the last couple of years.

For the past two years, Nvidia really have been proof that advertising works.

That said, the new top-end Nvidia line does seem to finally be giving the ATI 57xx/59xx series a run for its money, so I'm looking forward to reaping the rewards of that competition when it filters down to the budget/mid-end in 6-18 months.

mrbens 30th July 2010, 15:29

I agree, ATi deserve to be at the top of the current generation of cards.

Not sure why they're called 'discrete' tho as they're the noisiest part of a non-watercooled PC!!!

TSR2 30th July 2010, 18:07

Perhaps some of this is because nvidia's 8-9000 series were just too successful? The majority of new games can still be run pretty well on one, obviating the need for at least some, probably the middle, of the market to upgrade. Enthusiasts will still upgrade, however, and ATi's cards currently offer the best performance; ATi will also snag people newly coming into the market as, again, their cards are the best.

Chocobollz 30th July 2010, 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyceo
And your point was?

That you're simply being anal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TSR2
Perhaps some of this is because nvidia's 8-9000 series were just too successful? The majority of new games can still be run pretty well on one, obviating the need for at least some, probably the middle, of the market to upgrade. Enthusiasts will still upgrade, however, and ATi's cards currently offer the best performance; ATi will also snag people newly coming into the market as, again, their cards are the best.

Well I do agree that their 8000-9000 series is a successful one but I think it was part of the (I'm sick of) TWIMTBP campaign. How can it not be successful if they ensure that the game's dev putting a lot tricks and optimizations for their own cards into a lot of games? And they're acting like heroes just because they pour some x millions into a game dev, while AMD's just keep quiet while providing support for the same dev. Yeh, it's not an illegal practices but from my point of view, it does lil bit in the grey area. And they're also, instead of promoting open standards, they're putting their best efforts on their proprietary techs like PhysX, CUDA, etc. And I for one, don't like proprietary techs, because it will limit us to some companies, and I don't think they're the kind of company whom I can trust!

I do admit that I'm a bit on the ATi side but I always chooses what's the best for me. FYI, until now, my graphics card is like 50% ATi, 50% nVidia (my current one is nVidia).

Elton 30th July 2010, 18:42

It's always been like that for GPUs though, not everyone upgrades every generation, it's usually every other generation, and since the G92 still hasn't aged that badly..

Blackie Chan 30th July 2010, 18:44

hooray team red

kingjohn 30th July 2010, 18:46

so because nvidia had no trash level gpu to sell ati are up in the market what a joke . are amd still in the black or have they slipped back into the red . any info on the debt they have .

kingjohn 30th July 2010, 18:56

and all thiis talk of the amd ati gpu being the fastest letts wait and see if the dream pc makers agreee wether they give us dual or single gpu cards .

TheMusician 30th July 2010, 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyceo
And your point was?

What is your deal?

FeRaL 30th July 2010, 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chocobollz
Quote:
Originally Posted by crazyceo
And your point was?

That you're simply being anal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TSR2
Perhaps some of this is because nvidia's 8-9000 series were just too successful? The majority of new games can still be run pretty well on one, obviating the need for at least some, probably the middle, of the market to upgrade. Enthusiasts will still upgrade, however, and ATi's cards currently offer the best performance; ATi will also snag people newly coming into the market as, again, their cards are the best.

Well I do agree that their 8000-9000 series is a successful one but I think it was part of the (I'm sick of) TWIMTBP campaign. How can it not be successful if they ensure that the game's dev putting a lot tricks and optimizations for their own cards into a lot of games? And they're acting like heroes just because they pour some x millions into a game dev, while AMD's just keep quiet while providing support for the same dev. Yeh, it's not an illegal practices but from my point of view, it does lil bit in the grey area. And they're also, instead of promoting open standards, they're putting their best efforts on their proprietary techs like PhysX, CUDA, etc. And I for one, don't like proprietary techs, because it will limit us to some companies, and I don't think they're the kind of company whom I can trust!

I do admit that I'm a bit on the ATi side but I always chooses what's the best for me. FYI, until now, my graphics card is like 50% ATi, 50% nVidia (my current one is nVidia).

+1 Couldn't have said it better myself.

l3v1ck 31st July 2010, 06:55

I can't say I'm surprised. What with ATi's DX11 cards coming out before Nvidia's, and because they seem to have much lower power consumption.
I'm surprised their share isn't slightly larger to be honest.

NuTech 31st July 2010, 18:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chocobollz
Well I do agree that their 8000-9000 series is a successful one but I think it was part of the (I'm sick of) TWIMTBP campaign. How can it not be successful if they ensure that the game's dev putting a lot tricks and optimizations for their own cards into a lot of games? And they're acting like heroes just because they pour some x millions into a game dev, while AMD's just keep quiet while providing support for the same dev. Yeh, it's not an illegal practices but from my point of view, it does lil bit in the grey area. And they're also, instead of promoting open standards, they're putting their best efforts on their proprietary techs like PhysX, CUDA, etc. And I for one, don't like proprietary techs, because it will limit us to some companies, and I don't think they're the kind of company whom I can trust!

I agree there is definitely something unsavoury about the TWIMTBP campaign - which is made worst by the proprietary nature of technologies like Physx - but you should really be blaming the developers/publishers for that.

They gladly accept the help and support from Nvidia even though it alienates a major chuck of the market and effectively turns their game into a piece of propaganda which evangelises Nvidia's hardware (could you imagine turning on a PS3 game and seeing a massive Microsoft logo which basically said "Hey, you should be playing this on a Xbox!").

As an ATI user (5850), as much as it annoys me seeing that logo, my question becomes - why isn't ATI offering developers a competing physics technology?

ssj12 31st July 2010, 19:26

While its great the ATI manged this finally, I find it rather pathetic that they couldnt do it without being bought out by AMD. Nvidia is holding its own as its own company and not a subsidiary.

frontline 31st July 2010, 20:09

No real surprise, but hopefully we can get some decent price cuts across the mid-range now the 460 appears ot be worth a look. Wonder if we will see the 6000 series from AMD/Ati before the 20% VAT rate kicks in next year? :)

Chocobollz 1st August 2010, 13:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by NuTech
I agree there is definitely something unsavoury about the TWIMTBP campaign - which is made worst by the proprietary nature of technologies like Physx - but you should really be blaming the developers/publishers for that.

They gladly accept the help and support from Nvidia even though it alienates a major chuck of the market and effectively turns their game into a piece of propaganda which evangelises Nvidia's hardware (could you imagine turning on a PS3 game and seeing a massive Microsoft logo which basically said "Hey, you should be playing this on a Xbox!").

To be honest, I don't think I can blame anyone. It's their decision so it's up to them. It just, I'm sick with that kind of propaganda :-) If they're having only their logos on it, then I'd say that's fine, but when they add tricks/optimizations/or whatsoever as to make the game to prefer their hardware, then that's what I don't like. But of course there's nothing we could do so I'm just hoping that AMD made better and better hardware so as to make those optimizations feel insignificant :-).

Quote:

Originally Posted by NuTech
As an ATI user (5850), as much as it annoys me seeing that logo, my question becomes - why isn't ATI offering developers a competing physics technology?

Now, that's the 6 mil dollars question LOL.. I don't know either.. Maybe because they haven't got much money to do that or maybe they're just leave it up to the devs on how to support their hardware? Well who knows...

crazyceo 1st August 2010, 17:07

Again, your point was?

popcornuk1983 1st August 2010, 21:04

It's all about who has the most scalable products. And for the past couple of years it's been AMD. They have revised their whole strategy on how to design new cards from the ground up. Where as Nvidia stuck to the same method of building the biggest and most powerful GPU (in terms of raw performance) and scaling down from there. Which IMO has backfired a little bit on Nvidia. AMD took a risk and it paid off big time.

It's all good for us as consumers and tech geeks. The more competition there is, the sooner we get better products at lower prices! :-)

I'm sure this link has been posted before on bit-tech but it's still a brilliant article on how AMD changed their process for creating new GPU's.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2937/3

barndoor101 1st August 2010, 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyceo
Again, your point was?

so nice of you to bring something constructive to the discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by popcornuk1983
It's all about who has the most scalable products. And for the past couple of years it's been AMD. They have revised their whole strategy on how to design new cards from the ground up. Where as Nvidia stuck to the same method of building the biggest and most powerful GPU (in terms of raw performance) and scaling down from there. Which IMO has backfired a little bit on Nvidia. AMD took a risk and it paid off big time.

It's all good for us as consumers and tech geeks. The more competition there is, the sooner we get better products at lower prices! :-)

I'm sure this link has been posted before on bit-tech but it's still a brilliant article on how AMD changed their process for creating new GPU's.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2937/3

I re-read that article again the other day - stuff like that is the reason i read anandtech.

If we think about this, its no surprise its taken this long for AMD to get the lead - the 8/9 series were very good for nvidia, with those cards still being able to play the latest games relatively well (has any other gen of gfx cards lasted this long?). Problem is, once those guys upgrade their monitors they need to upgrade, and for the last year or so thats meant a HD5000 series.

m0ngy 2nd August 2010, 01:30

Love my fast, quiet, efficient, reasonably priced 5870. Nvidia are all marketing hype.

Elton 3rd August 2010, 00:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by m0ngy
Love my fast, quiet, efficient, reasonably priced 5870. Nvidia are all marketing hype.

Actually Nvidia's offerings arent necessarily bad since they did perform the part, they outperformed the competition, albeit not as much as they should've but they still managed to. If you really think about it, the GPU industry has always been a potshot, with one company one-upping the other every other generation(or 2).

Star*Dagger 3rd August 2010, 03:01

The real news story is that anyone has bought nVidia since the 8800gtx!!

Elton 4th August 2010, 00:50

Quote: