Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/48986
Q3 Graphics Shipments Up A ccording to Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multime- dia, the estimated graphics chip ship- ments and suppliers' market share for Q3 2011 is up 16.7% over last quarter and 18.4% over last year. Intel led the quarter with 36.5% growth, with Nvidia at 30% growth. Shipments during the third quar- ter of 2011 did (finally) behave according to past years with regard to seasonal- ity, and were higher on a year-to-year comparison for the quarter. 2011 is still an unusual year for the PC and graphics suppliers, however, as businesses take their own path to recovery. The third quarter of the year is usually the growth quarter, and was this year, which is a positive sign looking forward. The growth in Q3 comes as a welcome change—but is it inventory building for the holiday season? This quarter, Intel celebrated its seventh quarter of embedded processor graph- ics CPU (EPG, a multi-chip design that combines a graphics processor and CPU in the same package) shipments, and had a very strong double-digit growth in desktops and notebooks. AMD lost in overall market share, while Intel gained more compared to last quarter, and Nvidia declined due to its exiting from the integrated segments. Year to year this quarter, Intel market share increased (9.5%), AMD broke even, and Nvidia slipped (-23%) in the overall market partially due to the company withdrawing from the integrat- 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% -5% -10% -15% ed segments. However, Nvidia gained 10.9% in the desktop discrete area. The quarter's change in total shipments from last quarter increased 16.7%, above the 10-year average of 13.9%. AMD's HPU quarter-to-quarter growth has been GROWTH FROM Q2 TO Q3 are present in every PC shipped. It can take the form of a discrete chip, a GPU integrated in the chipset, or a GPU embedded in the CPU. The average has grown from 115% (in 2001) to almost 160% GPUs per PC. Discrete graphics processing unit (GPU) chips and other chips with graphics are a leading indicator for the PC market. 2001 2002 2003 Growth from Q1 to Q2 2.27% 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Growth from Q2 to Q3 13.98% The quarter's change in total shipments from last quarter increased 16.7% above the 10-year average of 13.9%. extraordinary at an average of 58.4% for desktop and notebook, and Intel's EPG growth was significant at an average of 23.6%. This is a clear showing of the industry's affirmation of the value of CPUs with embedded graphics and is in line with JPR's forecasts. The major, and logical, impact is on older IGPs, and some on low-end, low-cost add-in boards (AIBS). Almost 92 million PCs shipped worldwide this quarter, an increase of 8.8% compared to last quarter (based on an average of reports from Dataquest, IDC, and HSI). At least one and, often, two GPUs Market shares shifted for the big three and put pressure on the smaller three, and most showed a decrease in market share as indicated in the chart on this page. Intel continues to be the over- all market share leader, elevated by Core i5 EPG CPUs, Sandy Bridge, and Pineview Atom sales for netbooks. AMD lost market share quar- ter to quarter, and Nvidia lost share. Nvidia is exiting the integrated graphics segments and shifting focus to discrete GPUs. The company showed significant discrete market share gain (30% quarter to quarter). Nvidia credits strong connect with new Intel Sandy Bridge notebooks. Ironically, Nvidia enjoyed some serendipi- tous sales of IGPs in Q3 due to some older AMD CPU sales in Asia. AMD's overall graphics market share dropped 0.3% from last quarter, even though the company's HPU-class Fusion APU processors are selling very well. The Foundry Unveils Ocula 3.0 T he Foundry has rolled out Ocula 3.0, a significant upgrade to its stereo plug-in tool set for the Nuke compositing system. Ocular, used in production on groundbreaking live-action stereo projects including Avatar and Tron: Legacy, provides artists with a set of Nuke tools that assist with the integration of elements and help correct common stereo 3D defects. Ocular 3.0, the biggest upgrade of the product to date, brings new tools to help fix mis-focused camera pairs and retime in stereo, as well as a range of workflow tweaks and improvements to speed up day-to-day Ocula work. The new version is priced starting at $5400. 6 December 2011/January 2012