JPR: GPU Shipments Down 2.65% From Last Quarter, 3.3% YoY

[Raevenlord]

Jon Peddie Research, the market research firm for the computer graphics industry, has released its quarterly Market Watch report on worldwide GPU shipments used in PCs for Q4'18. Overall GPU shipments decreased -2.65% from last quarter, AMD shipments decreased -6.8% Nvidia decreased -7.6% and Intel's shipments, decreased -0.7%. AMD's market share from last quarter decreased -0.6%, Intel's increased 1.4%, and Nvidia's market share decreased -0.82%. Year-to-year total GPU shipments decreased -3.3%, desktop graphics decreased -20%, notebooks increased 8%.

Although overall GPU shipments declined PC sales saw an uptick of 1.61% which is a positive sign for the market overall. "The channel's demand for add-in boards (AIBs) in early 2018 was out of sync with what was happening in the market," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president and founder of Jon Peddie Research. "As a result, the channel was burdened with too much inventory. That has impacted sales of discrete GPUs in Q4, and will likely be evident in Q1, and Q2'19 as well."





The fourth quarter is typically flat to up from the previous quarter in the seasonal cycles of the past. For Q4'18 it decreased -2.7% from last quarter and was below the ten-year average of an 11.59% increase.​

Quick highlights

• AMD's overall unit shipments decreased -6.81% quarter-to-quarter, Intel's total shipments decreased -0.67% from last quarter, and Nvidia's decreased -7.62%.
• The attach rate of GPUs (including integrated and discrete GPUs) to PCs for the quarter was 135% which was down -5.92% from last quarter.
• Discrete GPUs were in 27.78% of PCs, which is down -3.83% from last quarter.
• The overall PC market increased by 1.61% quarter-to-quarter and decreased -3.79% year-to-year.
• Desktop graphics add-in boards (AIBs) that use discrete GPUs decreased -10.75% from last quarter.
• Q4'18 saw a no change in tablet shipments from last quarter.

GPUs are traditionally a leading indicator of the market since a GPU goes into every system before it is shipped most of the PC vendors are guiding cautiously for next quarter. For those who wish to understand the PC market, an understanding of the highly complex technology and ecosystem that has been built around the GPU is essential to understanding the market's future directions.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[64K]

It's no wonder that Nvidia's shipment of GPUs has fallen 7.62%. Partly due to the outrageous pricing of the RTX lineup and partly due to retailers charging even more that Nvidia's MSRP.

A lot of RTX cards are simply priced beyond reach of most people.

 

[kings]

If prices were the only problem, AMD would not have gone down 6.8% as it has cheap graphics cards.

At this point the market is stagnant, there is nothing from AMD and Nvidia that is really worth investing compared to the last 2~3 years.

Most are waiting for Nvidia and AMD to make serious progress with 7nm cards.

 

[overvolted]

The market is saturated with crap at ridiculous prices that offers essentially nothing new.
People are only going to be distracted by rainbow LEDs for so long...then they're going to go outside and find something else to do.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

The market for GPUs & mobile phones seems to have reached their respective resistance price levels.

Interesting to see where this goes from here.

 

[king of swag187]

If prices were the only problem, AMD would not have gone down 6.8% as it has cheap graphics cards.

At this point the market is stagnant, there is nothing from AMD and Nvidia that is really worth investing compared to the last 2~3 years.

Most are waiting for Nvidia and AMD to make serious progress with 7nm cards.

Agree with this.
A GTX 960 can still most of today's games 1080P med, and its basically 3-4 years old at this point. Another good example of this would be the 7970, R9 290 series, GTX 980 (ti) and basically any Pascal/Polaris or Vega card

 

[Fatalfury]

All are holding back for Nvidia 7nm , AMD Navi 7nm , DDR5 RAM, PCIE 4.0.

 

[Vayra86]

I think most people are just holding back because there isn't any reason to upgrade.

There are no killer apps that require graphics card X, and there is no graphics card Y that is such a great deal to upgrade to that people would think 'oh well, why not'. The only people who upgrade a discrete GPU are those that need to because their current one is obsolete/broken. And that is not a huge audience, especially since Pascal is already out for over 2 years with only a minor performance difference.

And then if you're in the market now... what do you get? A rebranded Polaris card, a year-old Vega, or an RTX 2060. Anything else is... well, not exactly a great choice. If you're in the market for any card faster than a Vega or 2060, all options are horribly overpriced and offer only baby steps forward in performance. What's funny is that nobody evidently cares about RTX. They just care about the actual GPU performance, the price, and quality of life features like silence. Its all up to that 2060 to get the market to adopt... and it has competition in both camps. That 1660ti is going to further cannibalize RTX and Vega at the same time.

If you think of it, we saw the exact same thing with Intel's quadcore reign. Half a decade of baby steps meant nobody felt compelled to upgrade from their Sandy Bridge to anything else. And even when Skylake came out, the biggest news was DDR4 in terms of performance. It goes to show that when the halo / top-end performance doesn't make significant leaps and takes the rest of the stack 'another step up' along with it, its essentially a useless generational release altogether.

Only price can then save it - see AMD. Nvidia losing more market share than a competitor that is forking over 2-3 year old technology speaks volumes. Economy and the market never lies...

 

[rtwjunkie]

I think most people are just holding back because there isn't any reason to upgrade.

^^THIS! Every single GPU in our household (1080Ti, 1070, and 980Ti) is overkill on each of the systems in the house. They only truly break a sweat occasionally. There is simply no reason, compelling or otherwise, to upgrade any of them.

 

[Octavean]

There is also some confusion on how these cards are ranked in the lineup or rather nVidia's nomenclature in addition to a straight-up out of left field price hike in the MSRP. If the retailers / e-tailers are hiking prices even further then that just makes matters worse.

Most people would simply assume, and rightfully so, that an RTX 2060 is an analogous successor to an entry level GTX 1060 predecessor in the lineup. Apparently that isn't necessarily nVidia's assertion. So this in part explains why a GTX 1060 6GB card was about ~$250 at release and why an RTX 2060 has an MSRP of about ~$350.

Even if the GTX 1660 Ti is supposed to be the successor to the GTX 1060 its a bit late and still cost more then the MSRP of the GTX 1060 on release.

 

[eidairaman1]

Q1 2019, People already got stuff in Q4 2018, things will be slow in Q1 typically.

 

[Fx]

I am still rocking the 980 Ti. I probably won't upgrade until the EVGA 2660 Ti or Radeon VIII comes out.