Graphics add-in boards (aka graphics cards), suffered a seasonally-expected fall in Q4’14, says Jon Peddie Research.
Shipments were down 0.68% QoQ and 17.52% YoY; much further than desktop PCs, which were down 0.72%. The decline, JPR feels, was somewhat due to the popularity of tablet PCs and embedded graphics. However, PC gaming momentum continues to build and is the high spot in the AIB market.
Overall, the desktop PC AIB market was up QoQ, with double-attach (adding a second or third AIB) rates rising. Since Q1’08, the attach rate of AIBs to desktop PCs has fallen from 63% to 36%.
In general, AIB shipments in Q4 followed seasonal trends, although the decrease was lower than the 10-year average (-3.22%). Total shipments were 12.4 million, with Nvidia continuing to hold a dominant market share of 76%. Nvidia was the only company whose shipments rose QoQ (up 5.5%), while AMD’s were down 16%. All other suppliers were flat or declining.
There are now just four GPU (chip) suppliers which also build and sell AIBs. Nvidia and AMD are the largest of these.
