Monday, August 24th 2026
AMD Gains Ground as Intel x86 Market Share Goes Back to 1995 Levels
According to Mercury Research, Intel's x86 CPU market share has dropped below 70% for the first time since 1995, hitting 69.3% in Q2 2026, a 6.5-point drop year over year. AMD was there to pick up the difference, reaching 30.7%, a new record for the company. Mercury Research president Dean McCarron confirmed the 31-year low to CRN following the release of his second-quarter CPU market share report. Those figures cover PC and server CPU shipments only. When semi-custom, embedded, and IoT products are included, the Intel market share falls to 65.9% vs. AMD's 34.1%, with the latter getting a boost from a stronger than expected gaming console SoC shipments, a segment Intel doesn't compete in, if we skip the Arc G3 CPU family dedicated to handhelds.
Breaking it down by segment, AMD's desktop share reached 34.9%, up 2.7 points year over year against Intel's 65.1%, despite Intel CPUs returning to Amazon's CPU Top 10 sales ranking yesterday. In the server CPU market, AMD managed to grow by 7.3 points year over year, reaching 34.5% against Intel's 65.5%. The competition is fierce in this segment, AMD has launched the 6th Gen EPYC "Venice" server processors powered by the "Zen 6" CPU microarchitecture, while Intel just announced its upcoming Xeon 7 "Diamond Rapids" CPUs and the "Crescent Island" graphics card for data centers and workstations. The laptop market is where AMD moved the most, climbing to 28.9%, up 8.4 points year over year, while Intel stays at 71.1%. Overall PC market share for AMD hit a record 30.3%, up 6.4 points year over year.
Intel pointed to record year-over-year sales growth in its Data Center Group and a growing number of long-term supply agreements when asked to comment. On the channel side, a U.S. systems integrator executive told CRN that Intel's partner engagement has picked up noticeably after a period when AMD was getting more attention. "I think they're realizing that they have to be active," the executive said, speaking anonymously.
Source:
CRN
Breaking it down by segment, AMD's desktop share reached 34.9%, up 2.7 points year over year against Intel's 65.1%, despite Intel CPUs returning to Amazon's CPU Top 10 sales ranking yesterday. In the server CPU market, AMD managed to grow by 7.3 points year over year, reaching 34.5% against Intel's 65.5%. The competition is fierce in this segment, AMD has launched the 6th Gen EPYC "Venice" server processors powered by the "Zen 6" CPU microarchitecture, while Intel just announced its upcoming Xeon 7 "Diamond Rapids" CPUs and the "Crescent Island" graphics card for data centers and workstations. The laptop market is where AMD moved the most, climbing to 28.9%, up 8.4 points year over year, while Intel stays at 71.1%. Overall PC market share for AMD hit a record 30.3%, up 6.4 points year over year.
122 Comments on AMD Gains Ground as Intel x86 Market Share Goes Back to 1995 Levels
This ain’t some minor wobble on the throne. Intel is still enormous but it’ll be fascinating to see whether they can turn the ship around, cling to its remaining dominance or eventually end up in a proper 50:50 scrap with AMD... the latter from a consumers perspective would be the best outcome.
No wonder they don't compete with nVidia at their own game (high end GPU), juice ain't worth the squeeze. Better to go for a different niche (consoles/SoCs)
The thing that would be interesting is to know what is the point they would out produce the market. Who knows.
Due to their complicity and shameless greed, I would rather they fall back down on their share because they would deserve it. Not that Intel would deserve higher market share either, but I digress. Maybe one day when the bubble pops, if that's even possible.
They've done the impossible like it was nothing.
Although even with Ryzen, it shows just how difficult it is to make a comeback against a near monopoly. AMD is doing well enough now they don't have to win on value, X3D chips have been doing so well AMD can win on performance, interesting how the tables have turned with AMD CPU's being the fastest in games.
Intel's now baggage (on their financials anyway) might one day become quite valuable.....
Also, whats with people giving intel **** for using tsmc during a transitional period when I've never heard that hurled at anybody else, well, until now that is. Intel is worth less than AMD now, so I don't think they should be held to a higher standard.
The market being what it is, I'd probably sit out anything new coming out unless pricing comes back to normal. AMD needs the market share, though I wouldn't be disappointed if every company involved with the AI bubble loses shares, since they've all gotten greedy and have forgotten they wouldn't exist without the consumer market.
Something is off in your calculation, no?
Or AMD are pure wizards? Which they are not, of course 😁
Not that it matters now - the only market shares that count now are in server, AI - consumer space is in freefall, I don't believe the calculations of just 6% contraction even a tiny bit.
Their cpu business is profitable, their fabs currently are not, making the entire company non-profitable. Should they just shed the weight? (hypothetically) If they did that... ontop of being worth half of what amd is worth, ontop of being the underdog in the diy world..... would they then be eligible to be held to same standard as amd?Didn't intel also gain market share... back in the complacency days, when their cpus were not improving much yet they were taking advantage of the situation? I mean amd is essentially the auto-choice for diy right now. And Ryzen used to be a budget product. Now this 9950X3D2? (though to be fair, people did ask for that.)
Still, anything X3D is expensive, because it has that 'i5' ring. Even on am4, 4 year old cpu, selling for $350 to people who can't afford ram partially due to actions of amd themselves. Though, its still the best product for am4 and its cheaper than building a whole new pc, right? AMD is stepping all over the people that saved them from bankruptcy so AMD can pursuit more profit in enterprise. I mean, its a publicly traded company, so I'd expect no less. Same with intel and nvidia.
Anyway point being, I really don't think their actions as of late... are worthy of celebration.
If it wasn't the case you would come up with examples of amd chips that were faster than Intel at the same price point. Bu they don't exist, that's why you avoided the question and instead went on a red herring.
Athlon and Phenom were successful products amd was gaining market share they were growing and would have probably made it if they didn't do the dumb stuff they did.
going fabless was a must to get out of debt, not the reason they are where they are today.