AMD's top-end RDNA 3 sales blow away NVIDIA rivals - is this why new Super GPUs are coming?

AMD is outmaneuvering NVIDIA to considerable effect in the battle of the current-gen graphics cards according to some fresh sales figures.

Okay, so we must treat them with some caution, but these are the sales numbers from a large German retailer, MindFactory, which are often referred to in trying to gauge the popularity of CPUs and GPUs.

TechEpiphany supplies the figures regularly on X (formerly Twitter), and you can see the number of graphics card units sold during week 45 of 2023 in the above tweet.

In total, AMD headed the pack with 1,990 units shifted, with NVIDIA in second place on 1,585, and Intel languishing way, way back on 40 units.

That means AMD has a 55% share, NVIDIA a 44% share (rounding), and Intel has the remaining 1% (ouch).

AMD actually sold 400 more GPUs in this week than Team Green, though NVIDIA does claw a little back when it comes to profits as opposed to revenue, due to an average selling price which is 12% higher than Team Red. (Actually, we're surprised it wasn't more than that, really).

If we look at the breakdown for sales of individual GPUs, the most popular is AMD's RX 7800 XT which shifted 755 units, followed by NVIDIA's best-selling offering the RTX 4070, although that mid-range Lovelace product was quite some way behind on 430 units.

AMD's 7900 XTX is in third place on 270 units, then we have the RTX 3060 (240 units) and RTX 4060 (235 units - behind its predecessor!), followed by the RTX 4080 (220 units). The RTX 4070 Ti is close behind it on 210 units.

Zooming in on the top-end

Therefore if we look at the current-gen GPUs, from the RX 7800 XT / RTX 4070 level upwards, we see a pretty skewed picture of AMD selling 1,145 units (adding in the only GPU we haven't mentioned above - the 7900 XT which shifted 120 units) versus 450 units for NVIDIA (adding the RTX 4090, which was much further down the rankings on 20 units).

That's a 72% share for AMD in terms of the upper-mid-range to high-end for current generation graphics cards - a very eye-opening figure. Indeed, it runs very much against the grain of the overall GPU market share reports we see (where NVIDIA is dominant).

Of course, this is just a small slice of the market - it's a single (European) source, and we're narrowing down our focus to the pricier current-gen GPUs.

But still, this must be a concern for NVIDIA, and it does suggest AMD is turning things around against the dominant power. Furthermore, it's a pretty clear indication of why Team Green might want to launch a salvo of new Super refreshes, if this is anything like a reflection of the state of sales in this area of the GPU sphere.

In theory, NVIDIA might reveal two or three refreshed Super graphics cards for Lovelace - recently, some doubt has been cast over the rumored 4070 Ti Super - purportedly as soon as CES 2024.