Gamers are buying fewer graphics cards according to a new research report, although Nvidia looks to be sitting pretty with roughly 94% of the market share to AMD's 5%

According to new Jon Peddie research, people are buying fewer graphics cards, and they're still mostly Nvidia ones.

For the final quarter of 2025, overall AIB (graphics card add-in board) shipments "decreased by 4.4% compared to the prior quarter." And within that market, "AMD’s overall AIB market share decreased by -1.6% from last quarter; Intel’s market share was flat, and Nvidia’s market share increased by 1.6%."

So, Nvidia has yoinked another 1.6% market share from AMD over the last few months. This leaves Nvidia at around 94% and AMD at just 5%. That looks especially bleak for AMD when compared to the end of 2024, where Nvidia had 84% and AMD 15%.

Since then, we've had the launch of the Nvidia RTX 50-series, but we've also had AMD Radeon 9000-series cards launch, too. It seems the majority of PC gamers have settled the score between these two generations and come down decidedly on the side of Nvidia.

None of this is to say that graphics card sales in general have been doing well, though:

"Total AIB shipments decreased from the previous quarter to 11.48 million units. That was less than the historical 10-year average of 10.82% for this quarter. AIB shipments increased by 36.0% from last year."

That 36% year-on-year increase might seem significant, but remember that we've had a whole batch of brand new graphics cards launch from both AMD and Nvidia since the end of 2024. The quarter-on-quarter decrease is more pertinent here.

Jon Peddie also explains that "the AIB overall attach rate in desktop PCs for the quarter decreased to 55%, down -12.3% from last quarter." AIB attach rate refers to how many discrete graphics cards were sold alongside and/or with full systems. In other words, fewer people bought PCs with graphics cards in them.

I've been keeping an eye on gaming PC deals regularly for the past couple of years, and it's no stretch to say this is likely because of climbing prices—these being due, at least in part, to the AI industry-induced RAMpocalypse. It's also interesting to reflect on the fact that GPUs are great for training and running local AI, so the decline in GPU sales shows just how data center-skewed the current AI boom really is.

The future of desktop graphics card sales doesn't look too peachy, either, according to the new research:

"Overall, AIBs will have a compound annual growth rate of -5.9% from 2024 to 2028, reaching an installed base of 172 million units by the end of the forecast period."

Dr. Jon Peddie, president of the research company and consulting firm, points out the multifaceted nature of the AIB market "squeeze":

"The AIB market, largely supported by gamers, is being squeezed from the bottom by powerful new notebooks and CPU integrated graphics, and from the high end by rising pricing due to competition (supply and demand), memory prices, and Trump administration tariffs that bounce around."

It's certainly true that integrated graphics could squeeze the market at the lower end, primarily thanks to Intel Panther Lake. But I'm not sure that's the right way around to look at it. It seems to me more like people would opt for integrated graphics systems because GPUs have gotten so expensive. Then again, it's not as if Intel Panther Lake and AMD Strix Point/Halo systems haven't been affected by rising memory costs, as well.

A final bleak and more immediate concluding outlook from Dr. Peddie: “Customers who would, and in some cases should, be replacing their PCs and AIB are holding off. We think because of these unstable conditions, the PC and AIB market will decline almost 10% in 2026."

Happy 2026, everyone. Here's to our ageing desktops, let's hope they stick it out.