Nvidia Maintains Dominance as Sales of Graphics Cards Hit All-Time Low in 2022
Sales of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090s impress amid decline of total available market.
Unit sales of discrete graphics cards for desktop computers hit an all-time low in 2022, according to data released by Jon Peddie Research this week. While shipments of add-in-boards (AIBs) rebounded in the fourth quarter, driven by the introduction of AMD's Radeon RX 7900-series as well as Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 and GeForce RTX 4090 products — which are the best graphics cards available today — the whole year was exceptionally weak for graphics cards.
7.3 Million Graphics Cards Sold in Q4
The industry shipped 7.3 million standalone graphics cards for desktop PCs in Q4 2022, up modestly from around 6.81 million in Q3 2022, but down 27.4% from 13.19 million in Q4 2021, based on JPR data. The analysts attribute the increase of AIB unit sales to attractive prices of previous-generation graphics cards, as well as the rollout of new ones.
"The fourth quarter of 2022 was peculiar in terms of AIB shipments, as some last-gen product inventory levels were being run down while new ones were introduced, combined with excess inventory and overhang in the channel," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of JPR. "Some products like Nvidia’s RTX 4090 did exceptionally well despite its high price, so almost everything we thought we knew about economics and market behavior seemed to be turned on its head in Q4.”
Nvidia maintained its lead with 13 million desktop GPUs and an 84% market share. Also, analysts from JPR mention exceptionally impressive sales of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 product that carries a $1,599 price tag. AMD's market share in Q4 2022 increased modestly to 11% from 10% in the previous quarter, but declined sharply from Q4 2021 as the company only shipped around 0.8 million discrete desktop graphics cards, one of the worst quarterly results ever. Intel controlled about 5% of the market, according to Jon Peddie Research.
"We saw a modest return to growth in Q4 2022 due to the stabilization of AIB prices and the successful rollout of next-generation GPUs from AMD and Nvidia," said C. Robert Dow, an analyst at JPR "The high-end RTX 4090, priced at $1,599 at launch, was particularly successful, with retailers unable to keep the part in stock. The success of these high-end AIBs reflects that first adopters are becoming acclimated to higher prices."
Lowest Unit Sales of Desktop Graphics Cards in History
For the whole year 2022, AMD, Intel, and Nvidia sold around 37.86 million graphics processors for desktop AIBs, down sharply from approximately 49.15 million units in 2021, according to Jon Peddie Research. In fact, 37.86 million units is an all-time low for discrete graphics desktop graphics boards. To add some context, sales of standalone graphics cards for desktop PCs peaked at 116 million units in 1998, based on JPR data.
With 30.34 million desktop discrete graphics processors sold in 2022, Nvidia maintained rather strong unit shipments and grabbed market share away from AMD. In fact, the company's desktop GPU unit sales in 2022 exceeded its shipments in pre-pandemic 2019, but 2022 was not a particularly good year from unit shipments point of view.
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By contrast, sales of AMD's Radeon add-in-boards dropped to 6.76 million units, their lowest point ever. In 2019 – 2021, the company shipped around 10 million standalone GPUs for desktop graphics cards per year, but 2022 appeared to be particularly bad for AMD's AIB unit shipments. It is hard to mention one particular reason for such performance of AMD's graphics unit, but it is likely that the company's focus on other products was among the factors.
Sharp Decline of Revenues
Unit sales of standalone graphics boards for desktop PCs clearly nosedived in 2022, so the whole market dropped $24.14 billion in the last four quarters, according to JPR. The number suggests that an average selling price (ASP) of a graphics card was $637. By contrast, the desktop AIB market was worth $51.8 billion in 2021 and a graphics board ASP was at $1,056. Still, JPR expects the AIB market to grow by 7% over the next three years.
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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thisisaname The in UK prices are not so great.Reply
AMD RX 7900 XTX £1049.99-£1299.95
AMD RX 7900 XTX £799.99 - £1049.99
Nvidia 4090 £1699.99 - £2399.99
Nvidia 4080 £1189.99 - 1699.99
I just want some sanity to return to the GPU market, current prices are just far to high.
For the price they are just not worth it. -
Heat_Fan89
If you want sanity to return, then don't buy it. It's the same idea when it came to the scalpers. Let them sit on their inventory. If it's true that the RTX 4090 is selling very well, that will just encourage Nvidia to maiintain and or increase prices in the future.thisisaname said:The in UK prices are not so great.
I just want some sanity to return to the GPU market, current prices are just far to high.
For the price they are just not worth it.
People complain that Apple is greedy by raising prices on their iPhones, it just encourages Apple to keep doing it when sales aren't that much different as prices go higher. -
vanadiel007 Looks like my RTX 3080 will serve me well for the next few years. People forget you don't need the latest and greatest to game well, and both AMD and Nvidia are banking on that forgetfulness.Reply -
AlskiOnTheWeb After having the manufacturers effectively be complicit in the gouging schemes of the past few years, they are reaping what they sewed. Tell them to peddle their crapware to the miners that they catered to for those years. I for one will never buy another discrete graphics card ever again. Never.Reply -
Giroro My newest video rendering/streaming box is an "Intel inside 12th gen N95" mini PC. It starts at $150, and I bought it specifically for it's bare-minimum iGPU.Reply
"Intel inside 12th gen N95" is sorta like the newest lowest end Alder lake celeron or Atom CPU with any kind of real availability.
I did this, because despite already having all the parts I need to put together a much better PC (except for a case and a GPU) I'd rather bake a potato than put up with AMD's junk encoders and Nvidias "only gamers buy GPUs, and all gamers are dumb little kids" attitude.
Also, nobody's made a low profile A380 yet, so Intel is still leaving all of their dGPU money on the table. -
thisisaname Heat_Fan89 said:If you want sanity to return, then don't buy it. It's the same idea when it came to the scalpers. Let them sit on their inventory. If it's true that the RTX 4090 is selling very well, that will just encourage Nvidia to maiintain and or increase prices in the future.
People complain that Apple is greedy by raising prices on their iPhones, it just encourages Apple to keep doing it when sales aren't that much different as prices go higher.
I've not which is why I'm still using a 970. -
PlaneInTheSky thisisaname said:I just want some sanity to return to the GPU market, current prices are just far to high.
Nvidia and AMD are bluffing. They know they control the market and have refused to make affordable GPU.
No worries though, sales figures show consumers are calling their bluff and aren't buying. -
criticaloftom they have to start getting more competitive because we are fast approaching a tipping point where on board graphics are simply good enough for most common gaming needs at full hd.Reply
Sure you can get 240hz displays or 4k ones, but to have the basic gaming experience fullhd is the benchmark to hit. lower res than that is noticeable lower refresh than 60 is noticeable; 120 even though or 4k is kind of a meh difference. There is simply not enough pressure on the consumer to make badly priced GPU deals; and if you could cut them out all together for power efficiency, system cooling simplicity and install size why wouldn't you.
The obvious answer all this time has been performance and you can tell AMD knows this as with the scaling back of vega graphics from what at the height was 11 on an apu to 2.
Consumers know manufacturers are trying to hold their cards close to their chest pun intended. -
russell_john Everyone concentrates on GPU sales but the fact of the matter is all desktop PC sales are down and GPUs aren't really any worse off than everything else. It was a predictable decline because of Covid just like the decline in PC sales in 2000 and 2001 was predictable because of Y2K ..... In both cases sales of product was high in proceeding years. In 1998 and 1999 everyone blew their wads because of Y2K and weren't buying in 2000 and 2001 .... Same thing for Covid people blew their wads in 2020 and 2021 so they weren't buying in 2022 and likely this will carry over into 2023. However with the GPT Ai boom this year both Nvidia and AMD will make out just fine, Nvidia selling pro GPUs (A100 and H100) and AMD selling pro CPUs (Epyc)Reply -
prtskg
AMD is using 2cu GPU in CPUs which earlier (in AM4) had no GPU. For apu, (Phoenix) 12cu is present for highest performance models.criticaloftom said:they have to start getting more competitive because we are fast approaching a tipping point where on board graphics are simply good enough for most common gaming needs at full hd.
Sure you can get 240hz displays or 4k ones, but to have the basic gaming experience fullhd is the benchmark to hit. lower res than that is noticeable lower refresh than 60 is noticeable; 120 even though or 4k is kind of a meh difference. There is simply not enough pressure on the consumer to make badly priced GPU deals; and if you could cut them out all together for power efficiency, system cooling simplicity and install size why wouldn't you.
The obvious answer all this time has been performance and you can tell AMD knows this as with the scaling back of vega graphics from what at the height was 11 on an apu to 2.
Consumers know manufacturers are trying to hold their cards close to their chest pun intended.