AMD Shifts Strategy on GPUs, Focusing on Growing Share

Instead of competing with Nvidia in the enthusiast segment for the most powerful graphics cards, AMD's first priority is to gain more market share, especially in the entry-level and mid-range segments. If it succeeds, more game developers could optimise their games for AMD hardware.

AMD is changing its graphics card strategy. Instead of continuing to compete with Nvidia for the performance crown in the enthusiast sector, the hardware manufacturer wants to focus on entry-level and mid-range models, starting with the next generation (RX 8000). GPUs for consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S also fall into this category. This was announced by Jack Huynh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Computing and Graphics Business Group, in an interview with Tom's Hardware at IFA 2024.

"I'm looking at scale, and AMD is in a different place right now. We have this debate quite a bit at AMD, right? So the question I ask is, the PlayStation 5, do you think that’s hurting us? It's $499. So, I ask, is it fun to go King of the Hill? Again, I'm looking for scale. Because when we get scale, then I bring developers with us. So, my number one priority right now is to build scale, to get us to 40 to 50 percent of the market faster," he said in an interview conducted by Paul Alcorn.

He explains that they have already tried the 'King of the Hill' strategy and that the market distribution between AMD, Intel and Nvidia has not changed. They want to build 'gaming systems' for millions of customers and not just focus on ten percent of the total addressable market, which is the flagship segment. That is why they want to focus on products that offer good value for money. And if they had more market share, they would get more game developers on board to optimise their games for AMD products. Huynh did not completely rule out flagship graphics cards, but said it was more important to gain market share first. He said: "One day, we may. But my priority right now is to build scale for AMD. Because without scale right now, I can't get the developers." He does not rule out high-end products in general either. "Don't worry. We will have a great strategy for the enthusiasts on the PC side, but we just haven’t disclosed it. We'll be using chiplets, which doesn't impact what I want to do on scale, but it still takes care of enthusiasts."

The strategy for servers and data centres is different. AMD is already the market leader (Epyc) and will continue to pursue a king-of-the-hill strategy. By the way. AMD confirms that it's working on a Ryzen Z2 chip for the next generation of handheld PCs for 2025.

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