Quarter-to-quarter AIBs shipments increased 5.6%, and 21% year-to-year.
“The graphics add-in board market has defied gravity for over a year now, showing gains while the overall PC market slips. The silly notion of integrated graphics “catching up” with discrete will hopefully be put to rest now,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie research, the industry’s research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia.
Jon Peddie Research (JPR) announced estimated PC graphics add-in-board (AIB) shipments and suppliers’ market share for Q4'16.
Market share shifts. The market shares for the desktop discrete GPU suppliers shifted in the quarter too.
AIBs using discrete GPUs are found in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, and other devices such as scientific instruments. They are sold directly to customers as aftermarket products, or are factory installed by OEMs. In all cases, AIBs represent the higher end of the graphics industry with their discrete chips and private, often large, high-speed memory, as compared to the integrated GPUs in CPUs that share slower system memory.
The PC add-in board (AIB) market now has just three chip (GPU) suppliers which also build and sell AIBs. The primary suppliers of GPUs are AMD and Nvidia. There are 48 AIB suppliers, the AIB OEM customers of the GPU suppliers, which they call “partners.”
Lots of AIB suppliers, smaller shipments. In addition to privately branded AIBs offered worldwide, about a dozen PC suppliers offer AIBs as part of a system, and/or as an option, and some that offer AIBs as separate aftermarket products. We have been tracking AIB shipments quarterly since 1987—the volume of those boards peaked in 1999, reaching 114 million units, in 2015, 44 million shipped.
The news for the quarter was encouraging and seasonally understandable, quarter-to-quarter, the AIB market increased 5.6% (compared to the desktop PC market, which increased 19.4%).
AIB shipments during the quarter increased from the last quarter 5.6%, which is which is above the ten-year average of -4.7%. On a year-to-year basis, we found that total AIB shipments during the quarter rose 21.1%, which is greater than desktop PCs, which fell 10.9%.
Gaming the game changer. However, in spite of the overall PC churn, somewhat due to tablets and embedded graphics, the PC gaming momentum continues to build and is the bright spot in the AIB market.
The gaming PC (system) market is as vibrant as the stand alone AIB market. All OEMs are investing in Gaming space because demand for Gaming PCs is robust. Intel also validated this on their earnings call., and the recent announcement of a new Enthusiast CPU. However, it won’t show in the overall market numbers, because like gaming GPUs, the gaming PCs are dwarfed by the general-purpose machines.
If anyone doubted that the PC was the platform of choice for gaming, this quarter’s results will correct that incorrect misconception. The gaming market is lifting the entire PC market and has over whelmed the console market.
The overall GPU shipments (integrated and discrete) is greater than desktop PC shipments due double-attach—the adding of a second (or third) AIB to a system with integrated processor graphics—and to a lesser extent, dual AIBs in performance desktop machines using either AMD’s Crossfire or Nvidia’s SLI technology Improved attach rate. The attach rate of AIBs to desktop PCs has declined from a high of 63% in Q1 2008 to 46% this quarter, a decrease of 11.5% from last quarter which was negative. Compared to this quarter last year it increased 36.0% which was outstanding.
Not just gaming. Workstation AIBs were also up for the quarter, 19.4% from last quarter, and 19.2% from last year.
Extended buy-cycle. With lack luster applications (other than games), and the failure of Windows 10 to spur the market, consumers for the most part, and commercial buyers extended their buying cycle out from three to four or more years. They still need and use PCs, but not the latest ones. The exception, and only bright spots, have been the gaming segment and professional graphics. As a result, we see consumers buying AIBs to gain performance improvements and not upgrading the PC as frequently.
This edition of Jon Peddie Research’s Add-in Board Quarterly Report covers the market activity of PC-based graphics for Q4'16.
This detailed 80-page report will provide you with all the data, analysis and insight you need to clearly understand where this technology is today and where it's headed.
The report contains the following content:
- Worldwide AIB Shipment forecast by segment, 2015 to 2021.
- Attach rate of AIBs from 2001.
- Detailed worldwide AIB Shipment Volume, by segment, and forecast to 2021.
- Major suppliers: Detailed market share data-on the shipments of AMD, Nvidia, and others.
- Market share history from Q1 2004.
- Percentage of shipments by region, from 2015 to 2021.
- Market value of AIBs, and pricing trends
- A Vision of the future: Building upon a solid foundation of facts, data and sober analysis, this section pulls together all of the report's findings and paints a vivid picture of where the PC graphics market is headed.
- Memory load and forecast.
This research finds that global GPU market demand in Q2'16 decreased from last quarter, and decreased from last year, to 83.32 million units. In recent years, as the gaming ecosystem is shaping up, software and hardware developers, information service providers, and even governments have been attempting to unearth market opportunities coming from this new arena. However, global PC shipment volume is forecast to fall further.
Pricing and Availability
Jon Peddie Research's AIB Report is available now in both electronic and hard copy editions and sells for $1,500. Included with this report is an Excel workbook with the data used to create the charts, the charts themselves, and supplemental information. The annual subscription price for JPR's AIB Report is $4,000 and includes four quarterly issues. Full subscribers to JPR services receive TechWatch (the company's bi-weekly report) and are eligible for a 10% discount. Bundle packages are also available. For information about purchasing the AIB Report, please call 415/435-9368 or visit the Jon Peddie Research website at http://www.jonpeddie.com.
JPR also publishes a series of reports on the PC Gaming Hardware Market, which covers system and accessories and looks at 31 countries. More information can be found here: http://www.jonpeddie.com/publications/pc_gaming_hardware_market_report/.
The overall graphics market includes discrete GPUs (dGPU) and GPUs integrated in chipset or embedded in CPUs. The overall PC graphics market is larger than the PC market, as shown in Figure 2. Discrete GPUs are on AIBs. Integrated and embedded GPUs are on the main, or system or motherboard, and are not covered in this report. For market and shipment information on all GPUs, refer to Jon Peddie Research’s quarterly report Market Watch. More information can be found at – www.jonpeddie.com/publications/market_watch/.
Contact Robert Dow at JPR ([email protected]) for a free sample of TechWatch.