GPU Demand Has Been Slowly But Steadily Declining in Q1 of 2022

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A hint that GPUs will be at MSRP later this year

Image of a processor on a motherboard.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

In a new report by Jon Peddie Research, it appears the GPU market is in a slow but steady recovery from the incessant supply and demand issues that have plagued the industry over the past two years. According to the report, GPU shipments in the first quarter of 2022 saw a 6.2% decrease compared to Q4 of 2021, with a total of 96 million units shipped in Q1. This includes both integrated and discrete graphics from all the major players: Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.

When broken down by each company, AMD saw the slightest decline of just 1.5%, while Nvidia saw a modest 3.2% increase. Intel’s market decline showed the most significant drop at negative 8.7% when compared to last quarter. On the flip side, consumer graphics cards from add-in board partners (AIBs) have seen an increase in shipments by 1.4% from last year. So it appears that these shipment reductions are mostly a result of OEMs machines and especially laptops.

Intel, AMD, Nvidia GPU Vendor Market Share for Q1 2022 - Q1 2022

(Image credit: Jon Peddie Research)

GPU market share over the past year has seen quite a change as well, with Nvidia and AMD eating some of Intel’s market share from Q1 of 2021 to Q1 of 2022 and Nvidia taking a lead over AMD.

In Q1 of 2021, Intel saw a large 68% GPU market share, thanks to the massive volume of integrated graphics chips it ships in both desktops and laptops. AMD came in second place with a 17% market share — again thanks mostly to integrated graphics solutions, though it did ship some discrete GPUs as well. Nvidia meanwhile had just 15% of the market share, but that consists entirely of dedicated solutions as the company lacks any integrated graphics options.

Fast forward to Q1 of 2022 and the GPU market share landscape has changed quite a bit. Intel lost 8% of its market share and now sits at 60%, and Nvidia has jumped into second place with a 21% market share, with AMD improving slightly to 19%. This is impressive considering all of Nvidia’s graphics shipments comes exclusively from discrete GPUs.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
PC Discrete GPU Shipment Shares
Row 0 - Cell 0 Q1 2021Q4 2021Q1 2022
AMD19%18%17%
IntelN/A5%4%
Nvidia81%78%78%

Interestingly, discrete GPU shipments from AMD, Nvidia, and now Intel has changed over the past year thanks to Intel’s entrance into the discrete GPU space. Q1 of 2021 of course saw no Intel market share, with Nvidia leading by 81% and AMD 19%. That changed in Q4 of 2021 where Intel grabbed a respectable 5% market share, and AMD dropped a point to 18% while Nvidia led the pack at 78%.

Q1 of 2022 showed no major change in market share, with AMD and Intel swapping 1% of market share between themselves. AMD currently sits at 17%, Intel at 4%, and Nvidia stays the same at 78%. What's particularly surprising is that all of Intel's dedicated GPU shipments come courtesy of its DG1 graphics solution, which isn't a particularly potent graphics solution. We suspect the vast majority of Intel's 4–5% discrete GPU market share is thanks to major laptop OEMs opting for Intel GPUs, probably at lower prices than AMD and Nvidia offered.

CPU shipments showed and even more drastic change over the past year with a 10.8% reduction in shipments quarter to quarter, and a full 26.2% reduction year over year. That's good news for CPU buyers, as it means there should be plenty of options at or below MSRP due to the lack of demand.

Overall, this data seems to confirm that GPU demand has been steadily decreasing, which is great considering the explosive year we had last year, where GPU supply could not keep up with demand. With the drop off in mining profitability, combined with the impending launches of Nvidia's Ada architecture and AMD's RDNA 3, we expect supply will continue to improve. That could lead to GPUs selling at or below MSRP by the end of the year. However, we suspect demand for the next generation GPUs will once again eclipse supply, at least in the short term, once those parts launch.

We also don’t expect the downward trend in GPU sales to last forever. JPR expects the compound annual growth of GPUs to increase to 6.3% over the next five years. 2021 was also an exceptional year for CPU and GPU sales, so the drop in sales the following year isn't particularly surprising. Long term, there's still strong market demand for discrete GPUs in both notebooks and desktops, plus increasing shipments for data center and deep learning purposes.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • blppt
    Wouldn't be shocked if everybody who doesn't already have their 3xxx or 6xxx series cards from Nvidia and AMD would just wait till the forthcoming 4 and 7 series cards. They've waiting this long; no point in dumping tons of money on a card that will be rendered obsolete in a few months.
    Reply
  • DSzymborski
    blppt said:
    Wouldn't be shocked if everybody who doesn't already have their 3xxx or 6xxx series cards from Nvidia and AMD would just wait till the forthcoming 4 and 7 series cards. They've waiting this long; no point in dumping tons of money on a card that will be rendered obsolete in a few months.

    While there will almost certainly be significantly better performance at each of the points in the product stack, approximately zero GPUs from this generation will be "rendered obsolete."
    Reply
  • Quenepas
    blppt said:
    Wouldn't be shocked if everybody who doesn't already have their 3xxx or 6xxx series cards from Nvidia and AMD would just wait till the forthcoming 4 and 7 series cards. They've waiting this long; no point in dumping tons of money on a card that will be rendered obsolete in a few months.
    I'm in that group. My cadence is skip 3 CPU gens and 1 GPU gen so I was due getting a 30XX and even if I tried waiting lists and lotteries and all that it didnt work. Then for a months now I'm getting emails of all kinds of retailers pretty much begging to buy their 30XX stock throwing in crap I dont need. Sorry folks! Most of you artificially created scracity just to bump up prices but now you'll be eating GPUs for breakfast.
    Reply
  • Jimbojan
    Intel is likely to gain more market share in discreet card, while its integrated graphic may lose some more shares, I will predict Intel next quarter will have 62% overall market share and 6-7% discreet as Intel to release its desktop discreet graphic card with more powerful chips in the 2Q22
    Reply
  • Heat_Fan89
    DSzymborski said:
    While there will almost certainly be significantly better performance at each of the points in the product stack, approximately zero GPUs from this generation will be "rendered obsolete."
    Totally agree, the RTX 3080 has several years at minimum and the RX 6800/6900 XT as well. I have a gaming rig with an RTX 2070 Super and it easily outputs 60-120 fps in 1080P with Max settings.
    Reply
  • 10tacle
    Heat_Fan89 said:
    Totally agree, the RTX 3080 has several years at minimum and the RX 6800/6900 XT as well. I have a gaming rig with an RTX 2070 Super and it easily outputs 60-120 fps in 1080P with Max settings.

    Well I have a 3080 Ti that is factory overclocked (see sig) to within 98% of 3090 performance. For most 4K gaming it does fine in the 75-120FPS lane to match my 120Hz capable OLED monitor with G-Sync (Gigabyte Aorus 48" with panel made by LG used in their C1 series OLED TVs).

    However, there are a handful of games I play the most with and that are heavy frame hitters. They are in order Microsoft Flight Simulator, Forza Horizon 5, and Far Cry 6. In MSFS specifically I am well below 60FPS in heavy scenery near and on the ground as well as in heavy clouds. All maxed quality settings. And it stutters when panning around in the cockpit view. So if the 4080 winds up being the estimated 15-20% faster than my 3080 Ti to lock in a solid 60FPS/60Hz with said settings, I will part ways with it and upgrade. MSFS is that important to me as a real world general aviation pilot. However, I'll have to wait and see what EVGA's FTW3 power requirements are as well as cooling capabilities as I'm on air and not water. So there will be people in certain circumstances with current 3-series Nvidia GPUs interested in what the 4-series will bring.
    Reply
  • SSGBryan
    blppt said:
    Wouldn't be shocked if everybody who doesn't already have their 3xxx or 6xxx series cards from Nvidia and AMD would just wait till the forthcoming 4 and 7 series cards. They've waiting this long; no point in dumping tons of money on a card that will be rendered obsolete in a few months.

    I just got my RTX 3060 last month - I will be skipping the next generation.
    Reply
  • shady28
    DSzymborski said:
    While there will almost certainly be significantly better performance at each of the points in the product stack, approximately zero GPUs from this generation will be "rendered obsolete."

    Exactly. In fact, the top 5 GPUs according to steam are the 1060, 1650, 1050 Ti, 2060, and 1050. Together they are over 27% of Steam gamers.

    I think this article and the JPR report are actually looking at demand optimistically. A lot of negative factors going on for the desktop / gaming PC space now.

    Crypto collapse has slowed a major consumer of GPUs, inflation causing people to move away from hard goods in general due to high cost of food and energy, a market that 'upgraded' early for almost 2 years straight basically pulling demand forward, optimistic views on future demand which is likely to result in over capacity as multiple new fabs come online and many more are being constructed, plus the entrance of Intel into the GPU space where they are likely to move their GPUs to Intel 4 on one of multiple new fabs within 2 years.

    I don't think this decline in price and oversupply is going to slow down at all nor stop at MSRP, on the contrary I think the prices will collapse in the 2nd half of the year.
    Reply