AMD continues to rule the desktop CPU and gaming market despite the launch of Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake-S processors. Going by various reports from popular retails and statistics from Steam, AMD gained close to 1% of the CPU market in November, increasing its overall share to nearly 32%. This is in contrast to the Intel CEO’s recent comments that the chipmaker should regain most of the lost market share with the Alder Lake launch. Going by Amazon’s bestsellers, AMD is still leading the pack with the Zen 3 based Ryzen 7 5800X, Ryzen 5 5600X, and the Ryzen 9 5900X being the most popular SKUs. Meanwhile, the Core i3-10100F and the Core i5-10400 are Intel’s most popular chips at #9 and #10. Alder Lake fails to make an appearance in the list of the top-10 most popular CPUs.
Steam’s Hardware Survey for November indicates that AMD continued to gain market share for the third consecutive month, pushing it to 31.53%. While AMD’s high-end CPUs enjoyed ample attention across the US and European markets, Intel was more successful in the budget and low-end segments.
The latest figures from Mindfactory Germany (via TechEpiphany) paint a similar picture. Out of the roughly 4,500 CPUs sold, 3830 were AMD parts, with 1130 being Intel Rocket Lake/Comet Lake offerings. Alder Lake sales were limited to just 457 for the week, just 10% of the overall units sold. AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X was once again the most popular SKU, followed by the Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 3800X, and the Ryzen 9 5900X.
The Alder Lake CPUs are still selling a fair bit less than the Ryzen 5000 processors for multiple reasons. Firstly, supply: The 12th Gen Core lineup is still far from capable of meeting the increasing demand and is scarce among the top-sellers on Amazon, Newegg, and other major retailers. Furthermore, these chips are yet to land in the South Asian, and some East Asian markets.
Secondly, DDR5 memory: DDR5 memory is pretty much out of stock everywhere. The few retailers that do have a few units are selling it for highly exaggerated prices. Thirdly, no budget boards: At the moment, only the top-end Z690 boards are available. The budget offerings, including the H610, B660, as well as the Core i5-12400F, 12500F, and 12600 are yet to launch. Intel generally sells much more of its budget offerings compared to the higher-end SKUs.
