AMD's purchase of graphics specialist ATI looks to be paying off, with a report claiming that the company has beaten rival Nvidia to a majority share of the discrete graphics market.
The report, prepared by Mercury Research and discussed over on ARN, claims that in the second quarter of this year AMD took 51.1 percent of the discrete graphics market, bumping rival Nvidia down to second place with 48.8 percent.
It's a surprising reversal of fortunes when compared to the same figures for the first quarter - in which Nvidia held a whopping 57.8 percent market share to AMD's relatively paltry 42.1 percent.
Mercury Research's Dean McCarron claims that the dramatic change in the market came about due to AMD's decision to launch budget-friendly DirectX 11 cards while Nvidia concentrated on the high-end.
While top-performance cards - usually costing upwards of £300 - are where the profits are to be found, McCarron claims that they have "little impact" on the market, with volume sales of budget cards where the true battleground lies. Nvidia's decision to delay the manufacture of low-price DirectX 11 cards in order to concentrate on its high-end products could well have cost it the market majority.
Things continue to favour the red team following the news that Apple's latest iMac desktop machines would be shipping with ATI graphics rather than the previously-used Nvidia cards - a small but significant win, which is probably worth more in in terms of marketing value than actual sales.
One thing is certain: if Nvidia doesn't want to become the underdog, it's going to have to buck its ideas up and start taking back some of its lost market share quickly.
Does AMD's recent success - and rapid rise to the top of the market - make sense, or are you struggling to understand what the company is doing better than Nvidia? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
The report, prepared by Mercury Research and discussed over on ARN, claims that in the second quarter of this year AMD took 51.1 percent of the discrete graphics market, bumping rival Nvidia down to second place with 48.8 percent.
It's a surprising reversal of fortunes when compared to the same figures for the first quarter - in which Nvidia held a whopping 57.8 percent market share to AMD's relatively paltry 42.1 percent.
Mercury Research's Dean McCarron claims that the dramatic change in the market came about due to AMD's decision to launch budget-friendly DirectX 11 cards while Nvidia concentrated on the high-end.
While top-performance cards - usually costing upwards of £300 - are where the profits are to be found, McCarron claims that they have "little impact" on the market, with volume sales of budget cards where the true battleground lies. Nvidia's decision to delay the manufacture of low-price DirectX 11 cards in order to concentrate on its high-end products could well have cost it the market majority.
Things continue to favour the red team following the news that Apple's latest iMac desktop machines would be shipping with ATI graphics rather than the previously-used Nvidia cards - a small but significant win, which is probably worth more in in terms of marketing value than actual sales.
One thing is certain: if Nvidia doesn't want to become the underdog, it's going to have to buck its ideas up and start taking back some of its lost market share quickly.
Does AMD's recent success - and rapid rise to the top of the market - make sense, or are you struggling to understand what the company is doing better than Nvidia? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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