AMD might be giving Intel some trouble in the CPU space, but they still seem not to be able to upend NVIDIA in the graphics card market.
According to a report by PC Gamer, roughly eight out of ten discrete graphics cards that gamers own are from NVIDIA. AMD has seen its share of the discrete GPU market decrease to 17% during the second quarter of this year. This is down from the previous quarter's 19%, and again down from a high of 20% from Q1 2020. The data comes from a report from the market research firm Jon Peddie Research.
Simply put, for every bit of market share that AMD loses, NVIDIA gains something from it. And according to the latest numbers from the Steam Hardware Survey, it's also quite obvious. Team Green still owns a massive 75.41% market share compared to AMD's measly 15.31%. The remaining 9.28% is Intel integrated graphics.
And since NVIDIA still controls most of the GPU market, this can also contribute to specific gaming technologies going in their favor. AMD has been the second-fiddle in two next-gen gaming tech: real-time ray tracing and AI-powered supersampling during the past few years. The large market share that AMD's competition maintains might mean that developer support for these technologies will be a priority.
For the foreseeable future, one can now expect to see more NVIDIA cards than AMD ones. Unless, of course, Team Red does something great with their RDNA3 chips, which are rumored to release alongside Zen 4 CPUs in late 2022.
Read also: AMD Might've Indirectly Confirmed Their Next-Gen RDNA3 GPUs
AMD RDNA2 Refresh To Change Up the Formula?
NVIDIA has done GPU refreshes in recent times with their "Super" GPUs (RTX 2070 Super, RTX 2080 Super, GTX 1660 Super). But since AMD's RDNA2 is already mostly finished with the release of the RX 6600 XT (and RDNA3 being over a year away), the only thing they could really do to gain a new foothold in the market is a GPU refresh of their own.
Perhaps according to a recent report by Tom's Hardware, AMD might plan to refresh their RDNA2 architecture. The leaked information extracted from a new AMDGPU Linux kernel DRM driver patch could allude to these refreshed RDNA2 graphics cards.
There are about 17 new PCI IDs and PCI IDs of cards available on the market. Among these is a purported series of Sienna Cichlid Navi 21 SKUs containing five different GPU IDs. There are also Navy Flounder Navi 22 SKUs and Dimgrey Cavefish Navi 23 SKUs.
Industry sleuths think that AMD might add these new GPU IDs for their add-in board (AIB) partners. This could also mean that the IDs are corresponding to engineering models.
If AMD wants to catch up with NVIDIA's GPU market share, RDNA3 will have to offer a compelling choice for users to turn away from RTX 4000. They could use their proprietary FSR to get a foothold, though. A graphics card refresh is not going to be enough, especially with Team Green's rumored plans for their Ada Lovelace cards.
Related: NVIDIA RTX 4000 GPUs Already Finalized for Possible 2022 Launch
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
