Significantly more GPUs for desktops will be sold in 2023. However, analysts say the impact of generative AI on this growth is limited.

Jon Peddie Research notes that the GPU market is doing well. 9.5 million desktop graphics cards were sold in the last quarter of 2023. This is an increase of 6.8 percent compared to the previous quarter and 32 percent year-on-year. After several difficult quarters, the GPU market is turning its back again.

AMD is the strongest mover

When you say GPU, you say Nvidia. The GPU specialist sold more graphics cards last year than ever before and this is also reflected in the market figures. With a market share of around eighty percent, Nvidia is unrivaled. It was AMD that recorded the strongest increase in the last quarter: AMD sold 117 percent more GPUs than a year ago and Nvidia “only” 22 percent. This meant that AMD was able to reduce Nvidia’s market dominance (a small part).

Intel is also trying to capture some of the GPU market, but will have to make do with a few crumbs for now. The chip giant’s market share fell from two percent to just under one percent in 2023. The Alchemist GPUs did not prove to be a direct hit. Intel is trying to expand its presence in the GPU market in another way by making GPUs for rival Nvidia.

Limited influence of AI

2023 was the year of (generative) AI and Nvidia received millions of orders for GPUs for data centers. As far as the desktop market is concerned, the AI ​​craze doesn’t seem too bad. According to Jon Peddie Research, the surge in GPU sales didn’t happen because everyone suddenly wants AI in their PC. “We have been shipping PCs with GPUs capable of AI inference work for at least a decade, perhaps even longer. So it’s nothing new,” Mr Peddie himself told The Register.

The AI ​​PC is therefore above all a trendy marketing term that has little meaning: an opinion with which we completely agree. Nevertheless, PC manufacturers assume that AI PCs will increase their sales figures again. Peddie concludes that more GPUs are being sold because supply and prices have simply become more accessible to the average person.