AMD Gains Data Center Market Share in Q2 2024, Drops Share in Desktop Segment

[AleksandarK]

In a recent report by Mercury Research, AMD has shown significant progress in the CPU market during Q2 2024, particularly in the data center and laptop segments. AMD's most notable achievement comes in the server CPU space, where it now holds 24.1% of the market, a 5.6% increase year-over-year, and a 0.5% increase from the previous quarter. This growth is particularly impressive in terms of revenue, with AMD capturing 33.7% of server CPU revenue despite its lower unit share. This suggests that AMD's high-end EPYC processors carry premium prices in the data center market and are most of the unit volume. AMD has also made advancements in the laptop CPU segment, reaching a 20.3% market share. This represents a 1% increase from the previous quarter and a 3.8% rise year-over-year. The company's success in laptops can be attributed to solid demand for its existing products, propelled by Intel's reported supply issues with Meteor Lake processors.

However, AMD experienced a slight setback in the desktop CPU market, losing a 1% share to Intel quarter-over-quarter. AMD now controls 23% of this segment, compared to Intel's 77%. This dip may be due to AMD's preparation for the launch of its new Zen 5-based CPUs in August. Despite AMD's gains, Intel maintains its overall dominance in the CPU market. In the total client PC space, Intel holds a 78.9% market share, with AMD at 21.1%. Intel still holds the majority of revenue and market share on all fronts. However, AMD is executing well, and Intel's financial troubles could be a setback for team blue. More competition at every front is great to see, and we are curious to look at the data from upcoming quarters and analyze how well both of companies perform.



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[Quicks]

AMD had great opportunity to overtake Intel. But greed and their marketing department cost them big time this round. Hope it bites hard where it hurts.

 

[Lesha]

AMD had great opportunity to overtake Intel. But greed and their marketing department cost them big time this round. Hope it bites hard where it hurts.

Zen 5 is a perfect server CPU, AMD will be fine in that department.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Zen 5 is a perfect server CPU, AMD will be fine in that department.

For sure, Zen 5 is squarely aimed at the server market where AMD makes significantly more than us gamers are willing to pay.

We've been getting the reject chips for a while now at least since Ryzen 3000 and probably 2000 as well.

 

[lepudruk]

I think there's a typo in the title: "market" not "Marker".

 

[mtosev]

No radical changes between Intel and amd's market share.

 

[lepudruk]

No radical changes between Intel and amd's market share.

Patience..

 

[Daven]

No radical changes between Intel and amd's market share.

That’s the opposite take from what the report is trying to convey.

 

[Wirko]

We've been getting the reject chips for a while now at least since Ryzen 3000 and probably 2000 as well.

However you want to look at it. Zen 4 CCDs that have more than 2 defective cores, or defective parts of L3, or can't reach 5.1 GHz, don't qualify for a Ryzen. But someone will gladly buy them packaged as one of many variants of Epyc. (and there's also TR somewhere in between)

 

[sephiroth117]

They need to make AM5 more appealing, with cheaper options.
people with 5800x3d, unless they have heavy productivity issues, there’s no reasons to upgrade really. Going to AM5 is expensive (ddr5, new mobo, expensive cpu)

Regarding intel vs AMD on desktop segment..the next fiscal year is probably going to be in favor of AMD given the whole controversies around the 13/14th gen

we’ll see when more ambitious games like GTA, MH Wilds, MSFS 2024 are out how the desktop market will react

 

[kapone32]

They need to make AM5 more appealing, with cheaper options.
people with 5800x3d, unless they have heavy productivity issues, there’s no reasons to upgrade really. Going to AM5 is expensive (ddr5, new mobo, expensive cpu)

Regarding intel vs AMD on desktop segment..the next fiscal year is probably going to be in favor of AMD given the whole controversies around the 13/14th gen

we’ll see when more ambitious games like GTA, MH Wilds, MSFS 2024 are out how the desktop market will react

DDR5 is not expensive anymore.

 

[Quicks]

Zen 5 is a perfect server CPU, AMD will be fine in that department.

With a 24.1% market share would suggest they are still doing something wrong.

 

[sephiroth117]

DDR5 is not expensive anymore.

It’s the whole cpu+mobo +cannot use ddr4

DDR5 is priced OK now but it’s not the only thing you’d need to change

 

[Wirko]

It would be very intersting if we could have separate data for companies building an all new x86/x64 datacenter in 2024, having no Intel/AMD legacy or long term contracts, so they can choose (more) freely based on estimated cost and benefit.

 

[Daven]

With a 24.1% market share would suggest they are still doing something wrong.

If AMD were to gain 10% market share per year, it would bankrupt Intel in less than two years. Intel may be down but they have loyalty and lucrative contracts. Plus AMD doesn’t have the money to buy enough chips to supply 50% or more of the market.

3-4% growth per year is gang busters when it comes to publicly traded companies. Surprisingly AMD is doing everything right across the board except desktop dGPUs. That’s reflected in their balance sheets, margin and stock price.

And to add insult to injury, AMD now has higher brand recognition.

AMD now has better brand recognition than Intel — firm rides AI wave to win on Kantar’s BrandZ Most Valuable Brands report

Intel climbed four spots on the list, but AMD rose nine places.

www.tomshardware.com

Finally this is just CPU market share numbers. It does not include Instinct and other areas of AMDs business.

 

[Patriot]

With a 24.1% market share would suggest they are still doing something wrong.

For sure there are things they could do better, their launches have been rough in general but it is also hard fighting back mindshare and co-marketing dollars.
In 2018 intel advertised their biggest advantage against amd was the 2B in cash reserves to fight amd with marketing...

In 2016 before Zen AMD had 9% of the desktop market. Currently they are limited by TSMC fab capacity as much as anything. They could have more desktop shares If they priced things lower than intel, and allocated all chip production to desktop... but why should they, they need the money epyc brings for R&D. You are just unhappy that they are no longer a cheap way to get better performance, and I get it... but its time to stop being a jaded hipster and just buy the best product, fanboism is stupid. AMDs budget options are meh, Intel has good budget options with a side of oxidation.

I think AMD botched trust with threadripper support bailing. Expensive boards with no follow up chips, they seem attempting to rebuild that with long am4/am5 support.
I am not particularly thrilled with the number of pcie lanes on am5 but I come from the hedt intel side with 40 pcie gen3 lanes...and early threadripper was cheap for 64 lanes.

Intels P cores are finally making a comeback on the server if they can get them out the door this should be a fun year... but no longer does intel get to charge 20k for 28cores.
I think the biggest mistake people make is thinking a company cares about you... They care about mindshare, and so they are going to price their products in a way that will sell enough to be in stock but not overwhelming inventory. They don't need to take over all of desktop marketshare, its not profitable when they sell every epyc they make.

If you want a list of things I think AMD has done wrong... most of it is software/firmware.
They have a tendency to launch things before they are fully baked and that is not entirely their fault? but it is their responsibility.
Intel does a much better job at delivering full ready to ship platforms to their partners for board development, they have created a lazy industry that relies on the cpu manufacturer to develop systems around the chips.
The partners do not have testing ecosystems around their own motherboards... so AMD has been riddled with those USB issues on AM4, melty sockets on AM5... because the motherboard manufactures do not test things adequately because they haven't had to...

On the rocm side of things... lack of desktop support to grow the ecosystem as a whole, they only added WSL support in the past 2-3mo for ROCm. And the lack of LTS... they drop card support sometimes without logic. Dropped Mi25/Vega64 and kept Mi60/RadeonVii, though they have deprecated all of Vega now, while having it still everywhere. I think a lot of this comes down to limited software engineering bandwidth, which they are focusing on now, so that will slowly get rectified.

 

[Sarajiel]

AMD had great opportunity to overtake Intel. But greed and their marketing department cost them big time this round.

They need to make AM5 more appealing, with cheaper options.

You guys are aware that the client/desktop CPU market mostly consists of businesses, and not of DIY enthusiasts or gamers?

I'd guess that Intel's problems aren't even on the radar for most companies buying their Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc. office PCs by the shipping container since those mostly consists of lowly 65W i5 CPUs that most likely aren't affected, and are usually thrown out after 3 years anyway, after the company has them written-off.

To get deeper into that corporate desktop market segment, AMD needs to offer more than just affordable hardware, it's much more about platforms for fleet-management, energy efficiency, etc. Unless they find a way to seamlessly integrate into existing ecosystems of Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc. offerings, those buyers will only slowly move away from Intel.

 

[Patriot]

To get deeper into that corporate desktop market segment, AMD needs to offer more than just affordable hardware, it's much more about platforms for fleet-management, energy efficiency, etc. Unless they find a way to seamlessly integrate into existing ecosystems of Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc. offerings, those buyers will only slowly move away from Intel.

The ryzen pro and epyc branded ryzen chips will help with that... Also... all the chips that quicks is too cheap to buy, just get sold as epyc am5 low end servers.

 

[R0H1T]

With a 24.1% market share would suggest they are still doing something wrong.

Maybe you should ask Dell/HP/Lenovo(?) that

Probably the biggest desktop share these days is of AIO/thin clients, prebuilt OEM systems et al.

 

[Sarajiel]

The ryzen pro and epyc branded ryzen chips will help with that... Also... all the chips that quicks is too cheap to buy, just get sold as epyc am5 low end servers.

Epyc 4004 CPUs aren't intended for desktops. They are basically just a product for two European webhosters, OVH & IONOS, that already sold a ton of Ryzen-based servers in the past.

I was talking about the large businesses that run floors and floors of cubicle farms. These companies want something like Ryzen Pros as you said, but they also don't want to spend any additional cost for maintaining their infrastructure.
A new and fancy CPU doesn't offer something like "vPro"? It's a pass for them, because just by additionally having to support AMD Dash or whatever it's called at the moment, it would increase their cost of operations. It's different for the SoHo and small business side of things, but unless the tier 1 OEMs are onboard, Intel will keep their stronghold in the enterprise client market.

 

[Tomorrow]

It’s the whole cpu+mobo +cannot use ddr4

DDR5 is priced OK now but it’s not the only thing you’d need to change

Agreed. While it's possible to get 7500F under 200 and decent 32GB DDR5 under 100 the motherboard situation is bleak. AM5 motherboards are still expensive:

A620 starts from 80€ with 23 boards.
B650 starts from 88€ with 73 boards.
B650E starts from 197€ with 18 boards.
X670 starts from 189€ with 7 boards.
X670E starts from 252€ with 23 boards.

For comparison AM4 boards:
A320 starts from 59€ with 5 boards.
A520 starts from 51€ with 30 boards.
B450 starts from 50€ with 30 boards.
B550 starts from 60€ with 69 boards.
X370 starts from 77€ with 2 boards.
X470 starts from 290€ with 2 boards.
X570 starts from 153€ with 20 boards.

Minimum price of B650 board: 88€
Minimum price of B550 board: 60€
+46% more expensive for AM5.

Average price of all B650 boards: 158€
Average price of all B550 boards: 114€
+38.5% more expensive for AM5.

Maximum price of B650 board: 489€
Maximum price of B550 board: 511€
-4.5% less expensive for AM5.

Source: Geizhals.de
Average price calculation: ChatGPT 4o via pasted price list of B550/B650.

As you can see the minimum price for the most popular chipset board has increased by whopping 46% and average price has increased by massive 38,5%.
The number of boards has stayed roughly the same but options have narrowed. There are zero ATX 2DPC boards like there were in AM4 a'la MSI Unify-X series.
There's also no OC or XOC focused board analogues that are available for Intel a'la Apex or Tachyon. There are far fewer boards with Dual-BIOS and i could probably continue this list for a while. You get the point.

This is two years after AM5 launch and prices have not come down and thus continue to be considerable block for AM5 adaption. Especially for AM4 owners who already have for example X570 + 5950X or 5800X3D.

 

[ypsylon]

I'm sure AMD is more than satisfied with gaining ~1% in server segment & HPC and losing couple % in desktop.

Everybody in IT knows that honey pot is in HPC segment where 90% of capacity is targeted. That 0.5-1% gain is huge $$$ compared to few % lost in pleb PC market.

It's also obvious that AMD has caught Intel disease. They think they're too good, no need to really innovate vide disastrous 9xxx Ryzens which at best offer same performance as previous generation.