AMD briefly passes Intel in desktop CPU market share for first time in 15 years, according to PassMark

Since the release of the Ryzen platform almost four years ago, AMD has consistently seen higher and higher market share in the desktop CPU space. According to data from PassMark, Team Red finally overtook Intel in the desktop CPU market earlier today… for a short time, at least.

The data, which measures how many Intel and AMD CPUs have been used in PassMark’s benchmarks, showed AMD with 50.8% of the desktop CPU market, compared to Intel’s 49.2%. That data point was captured at about 9:00 AM this morning by TechSpot. 

Since then, PassMark’s database shows Intel edging out a slight lead at 50.1% (with AMD at 49.9%) as of 4:30 PM. 

It should be noted that Intel still dominates in the laptop and server markets, capturing 83.2% and 98.8% of PassMark uses, respectively, so far in Q1 2021. PassMark also reports that Intel CPUs account for 61.7% of all benchmark runs across all device classes during the same period, a small bump from 61.4% last quarter. AMD currently sits at 38.2% of all benchmark runs across all device classes. 

Still, there’s little doubt that AMD has made inroads over the past 3 ½ years. The last time AMD truly threatened Intel’s desktop dominance was back in the mid-2000s, prior to the release of Intel’s Core 2 architecture in the middle of 2006. 

What are your thoughts on AMD’s massive growth in the desktop space? Let us know in the comments.