ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, became the world's largest supplier of discrete graphics processors in the second quarter of 2010, according to numbers released by Mercury Research. The company still lags behind its rival Nvidia Corp. on the desktop market in terms of volume, but it does lead in terms of more expensive DirectX 11 graphics chips.

Intel Corp. remained the absolute king of graphics adapters with 54.3% of unit market share thanks to its graphics engines that are built into its central processors and core-logic sets. AMD experienced a jump in shipments of integrated and standalone graphics processors for both desktop and mobile PCs, which is why its overall graphics market share got a 4.2% sequential and 6.3% annual increase. Meanwhile, Nvidia Corp. lost 6.5% of overall share quarter-over-quarter and 9.8% of the market year-over-year in terms of units. Nvidia's problems can be explained with the loss of chipset business as well as troubles with ramping up the latest line of GeForce graphics processors based on Fermi architecture. 

AMD's graphics business unit shipped 51.1% of all discrete graphics processors on the market, both for desktops and mobile computers, whereas Nvidia only supplied 48.8% of such chips. Thanks to very competitive product lineup, AMD's share in the standalone graphics processing units (GPUs) segment was up 9%, whereas Nvidia lost a share.

On the desktop market Nvidia continued to lead - it shipped 8.55 million of discrete graphics chips for desktops, whereas ATI only supplied 6.9 million in Q2 2010 - with 55.2% market share. Still, ATI's desktop standalone market share received a 9.6% boost (to 44.5%) thanks to mainstream DirectX 11-supporting graphics processors that are still absent in the range of products offered by Nvidia.

Due to weak competition from Nvidia that results in the many renamed parts and lack of truly new offerings, ATI also managed to improve its position on the market of standalone graphics chips for mobile computers to 56.3%, which is up 7.6%. Earlier this year AMD's graphics business unit introduced a top-to-bottom lineup of DirectX 11-supporting GPUs, besides, its previous-generation DirectX 10.1 graphics processors also won many designs thanks to AMD Vision platform initiative. In total both companies supplied 19.395 million of mobile standalone GPUs, according to Mercury Research.

"In our opinion, the change is based on good execution of our DirectX 11 graphics product roll-out and an architecture that focuses on industry-leading image quality as well as delivering excellent thermal and performance per watt characteristics that notebook and desktop OEMs require for integration into their designs. These fundamentals continue to be a focus for us," said David Erskine, a spokesman for AMD's graphics unit.

Tags: ATI, AMD, Nvidia, Intel, , Matrox, S3 Graphics, SiS, Fermi, Radeon, Geforce, mercury research