Market research firm Jon Peddie Research has released its estimates concerning the worth of desktop graphics adapters market in the seasonally slow second quarter of the year. Apparently, the whole market worth $5.9 billion and the bulk of this value belongs to enthusiast/performance-class standalone graphics cards, which unit market share graphics is not significant.

Even though chipset integrated graphics adapters represent 62% of unit share in desktops, they only command 8% of revenues. Meanwhile, discrete desktop graphics adapters, which are found only in 38% of personal computers (PCs) represent 92% of revenues. Furthermore, standalone graphics cards that belong to enthusiast and performance classes, which means that they cost $199 and beyond, bring 74% of the whole market’s revenues, according to data in Q3 2006 edition of Jon Peddie’s Market Watch.

It is obvious that a graphics chip that powers a $500 graphics board costs much more than a chipset with integrated graphics and also brings far more profits, which means that the higher enthusiast/performance class desktop components unit market share is, higher is the income.

JPR estimates that approximately 51.79 million desktop graphics devices shipped in Q2’06, 32.2 million or 62% of which were integrated parts. Overall, Intel claimed 35% of the desktop graphics market, ATI held 23%, and Nvidia held 24% market share. While Intel was the largest supplier of desktop graphics during the period, the company’s segment market share increased slight, ATI’s lead over Nvidia in the desktop segment narrowed as Nvidia picked up market share and ATI stayed flat compared to the prior quarter.

“ATI and Nvidia continued to dominate the desktop GPU market in the second quarter, but with a shift in relative positions. Nvidia has lead ATI in the discrete desktop segment for four consecutive quarters. However, with the launch of its flagship Radeon 1900 series and improvements in segments, ATI was able to regain lost segment share in Q2’06. The delays ATI experienced in bringing its latest generation GPU technology to market also assisted Nvidia in growing share during the period,” said Lisa Epstein, a senior analyst at Jon Peddie Research.