AMD and Nvidia are like what Apple and Microsoft are to each other; fierce competitors, with each striving to outmatch the other. There has been a rather twist in events such that AMD has now surpassed Nvidia even in Graphics Cards sales. This is partly because of the new industry trend: Mine cryptocurrency.
AMD GPU sales as sold separate cards (not integrated ones) have increased by a whopping 6.5 percent. This is as per reported by Jon Peddie Research. The research is based on the q4 i.e. the last quarter of the year 2017. Not only did AMD enjoyed success in the market share as well with an increase from 27.2 percent in the third quarter to 33.7 percent by the fourth one. On the contrary, Nvidia’s shares took a plunge relatively the same amount as the AMD’s rose. The plunge was from a 72.8 percent to a 66.3 percent.
This increase can be explained by the public’s sudden interest in cryptocurrency mining. Due to the public demand, the graphics cards prices rose as well, and the company registered $776 million (£560 million, AU$990 million), in revenue in just a year. More than 3 million graphics cards were sold to just cryptocurrency owners and that’s a lot. According to the Jon Peddie research, AMD got to benefit from the cryptocurrency boom than Nvidia could.
Since Nvidia wasn’t really benefitting as much from high Graphics Card demand as compared to AMD, Nvidia started to bring out countermeasures to prevent cryptocurrency miners from getting all the graphics card before hardcore gamers could get their hands on one. They were able to do this by restricting customers i.e. most miners from getting their hands on bulk graphics cards rather than just a one or two. This hurt Nvidia since they were trying to cater to gaming community so compromised on their very own sales.
Though this does mean that whenever this boom shall go down and things will be back to normal, and gamers would be the primary users of graphics card then Nvidia shall benefit the most, since they are keeping their intimacy with their customers intact.
Getting your hands on a graphics card one isn’t easy since graphics card prices have skyrocketed not only due to the demand for more cards for cryptocurrency mining but also because of a lack of Video Memory. To be honest, the situation might even get worse this year as more and more people are thinking of alternative way or earning money through mining.
Though, currently, the matter of debate is still whether AMD would continue to outsell Nvidia or not. Only time can tell that.