AMD is biting at Intel's server market share with its largest gains in over a decade

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Intel is still holding the fort in mobile and desktop, but Epyc chips are snapping at Xeon's dominance in the datacentre.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su holding an AMD EPYC server processor at CES 2020
(Image credit: AMD)

The first few months of 2021 have been absolutely massive for AMD and Intel. According to the latest report from Mercury Research, the first three months of 2021 saw the largest yearly increase in shipments of CPUs in a quarter of a century, and second only to the final moments of 2020 in terms of raw volume.

You'd be perhaps surprised to learn that Intel has gained a touch in overall x86 market share in Q1 2021, whereas AMD reportedly lost out. There's only a percentage point in it: a 1% gain for Intel and a 1% loss for AMD, though. Far from major gains in either direction.

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But perhaps the biggest win in AMD's eyes is the 1.8% increase in server market share quarter to quarter, and 3.8 percent year on year. That means its Epyc processors are selling supremely well against Intel's Xeon chips, and the market that AMD will be most determined to get more of a footing in. 

Datacentres are not quite so fickle as us gaming lot, see.

While 1.8% may appear marginal, it equates to a helluva lot of server chips. In fact, since Intel's server sales were down, AMD managed its highest single-quarter market share gain since 2006, back in the Opteron days.

Clearly it's a good time to be in the business of chipmaking—what with demand soaring to space and showing few signs of slowing. Sadly, however, it's not been great for us gamers as demand sees stock depleted within moments of returning, and often sold on for profit. At least that's mainly graphics cards, and not all CPUs. It's still possible to pick up some of the best CPUs for gaming going.

Jacob Ridley
Jacob Ridley
Managing Editor, Hardware

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.