AMD has witnessed its largest server market share jump with its EPYC CPUs in Q1 2021. In data published by Mercury Research (via CRN), it is reported that the chipmaker saw its largest share increase against Intel since 2006.
AMD EPYC Server CPU Market Share Races Ahead, Witnesses Largest Gain Against Intel Since 2006
It is reported by the research company that AMD's server CPU share which comprises its EPYC business grew 1.8 points to 8.9 percent during the previous quarter. The market share was 3.8 points higher than Q1 2020 which shows the demand for EPYC CPUs in the data center segment.
The president of Mercury Research, Dean McCarron, went on to tell CRN that the Q1 2021 market share growth is the fastest since Q2 2006, back when Opteron was still competitive and giving Intel a tough time in the server segment. AMD did claim that it had hit double-digit server market share last year but it is pointed out that those were only specific to single and dual-socket servers which tend to be AMD's primary focus and don't include servers for network and storage.
“This explains how AMD reported in its earnings that it had record server and client revenues, even though units were down in client and server units are far from the company’s record shipments of 15 years ago,” he said in an email to CRN.
Dean McCarron, President of Mercury Research
AMD CPU Market Share (via Mercury Research):
| Mercury Research | Q2 2025 | Q1 2025 | Q4 2024 | Q3 2024 | Q2 2024 | Q1 2024 | Q4 2023 | Q3 2023 | Q2 2023 | Q1 2023 | Q4 2022 | Q3 2022 | Q2 2022 | Q1 2022 | Q4 2021 | Q3 2021 | Q2 2021 | Q1 2021 | Q4 2020 | Q3 2020 | Q2 2020 | Q1 2020 | Q4 2019 | Q3 2019 | Q2 2019 | Q1 2019 | Q4 2018 | Q3 2018 | Q2 2018 | Q1 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Desktop CPU Market Share | 32.2% | 28.0% | 27.1% | 28.7% | 23.0% | 23.9% | 19.8% | 19.2% | 19.4% | 19.2% | 18.6% | 13.9% | 20.6% | 18.3% | 16.2% | 17.0% | 17.1% | 19.3% | 19.3% | 20.1% | 19.2% | 18.6% | 18.3% | 18.0% | 17.1% | 17.1% | 15.8% | 13.0% | 12.3% | 12.2% |
| AMD Mobility CPU Market Share | 20.6% | 22.5% | 23.7% | 22.3% | 20.3% | 19.3% | 20.3% | 19.5% | 16.5% | 16.2% | 16.4% | 15.7% | 24.8% | 22.5% | 21.6% | 22.0% | 20.0% | 18.0% | 19.0% | 20.2% | 19.9% | 17.1% | 16.2% | 14.7% | 14.1% | 13.1% | 12.2% | 10.9% | 8.8% | N/A |
| AMD Server CPU Market Share | 27.3% | 27.2% | 25.1% | 24.2% | 24.1% | 23.6% | 23.1% | 23.3% | 18.6% | 18.0% | 17.6% | 17.5% | 13.9% | 11.6% | 10.7% | 10.2% | 9.50% | 8.9% | 7.1% | 6.6% | 5.8% | 5.1% | 4.5% | 4.3% | 3.4% | 2.9% | 4.2% | 1.6% | 1.4% | N/A |
| AMD Overall x86 CPU Market Share | 24.2% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 24.4% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 24.7% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 23.9% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 21.1% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 20.6% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 20.2% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 19.4% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 17.3% (Excluding IOT/SC) | 34.6% | 31.3% | 28.5% | 29.2% | 27.7% | 25.6% | 24.6% | 22.5% | 20.7% | 21.7% | 22.4% | 18.3% | 14.8% | 15.5% | 14.6% | 13.9% | N/A | 12.3% | 10.6% | N/A | N/A |
With EPYC Milan already launched and Rome already powering several datacenters and super-computers, AMD is in a very strong position than they were with Opteron. Sure, the gains have been steady and not as drastic as we thought they would have but it's a stepping stone for AMD, and each quarter pushes them further ahead in their goal to become a leader in the server CPU segment and so far, EPYC chips have proved that they are well-suited for this job & getting better each passing generation.
Alexey Stolyar, CTO of International Computer Concepts, a Northbrook, Ill.-based system integrator, told CRN that he doesn’t think AMD will repeat its previous rise-and-fall trajectory with EPYC because of CEO Lisa Su’s strong leadership and vision for the company. He also doesn’t think AMD will make the same mistake it did with its 2012 acquisition of SeaMicro, whose server products were killed off in 2015.
“I don’t think they had a clear vision last time,” he said. “Is Intel going to come back and have a competitive product? Sure. But at that point, you’re going to have two big players, and people are going to have to do more testing to see what product is better for them.”
The bigger question is what the rise of Arm CPU architectures in the data center may mean for both AMD and Intel, with Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft and others moving to make Arm-based CPUs.
“I think that’s going to be a question of how well can Nvidia or whoever’s pushing Arm develop their tool sets to really enable the community for development,” Stolyar said.
As we move forward, AMD will also be facing off against ARM-based CPUs from major server players such as NVIDIA. NVIDIA recently introduced its Grace ARM CPU which is designed for modern datacenter and AI workloads. Grace and ARM CPUs pose a threat to both Intel & AMD, however, Intel's CEO has already stated that they are taking an offensive approach against the competing ARM-based solutions. It looks like AMD is going to take a similar approach & fire back with its own custom EPYC CPUs but as of right now, there's not much to worry about.
As for what's next, AMD has a strong portfolio of next-generation EPYC CPUs in its pockets. The 4th Gen EPYC Genoa chips are planned to be announced next year and will feature the brand new Zen 4 core architecture and a host of other features to tackle Intel's Sapphire Rapids & Granite Rapids Xeon CPUs.
AMD EPYC CPU Families:
| Family Name | AMD EPYC Verano | AMD EPYC Venice | AMD EPYC Turin-X | AMD EPYC Turin-Dense | AMD EPYC Turin | AMD EPYC Siena | AMD EPYC Bergamo | AMD EPYC Genoa-X | AMD EPYC Genoa | AMD EPYC Milan-X | AMD EPYC Milan | AMD EPYC Rome | AMD EPYC Naples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family Branding | EPYC 9007 | EPYC 9006 | EPYC 9005 | EPYC 9005 | EPYC 9005 | EPYC 8004 | EPYC 9004 | EPYC 9004 | EPYC 9004 | EPYC 7004 | EPYC 7003 | EPYC 7002 | EPYC 7001 |
| Family Launch | 2027 | 2026 | 2025 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2023 | 2023 | 2022 | 2022 | 2021 | 2019 | 2017 |
| CPU Architecture | Zen 7 | Zen 6 | Zen 5 | Zen 5C | Zen 5 | Zen 4 | Zen 4C | Zen 4 V-Cache | Zen 4 | Zen 3 | Zen 3 | Zen 2 | Zen 1 |
| Process Node | TBD | 2nm TSMC | 4nm TSMC | 3nm TSMC | 4nm TSMC | 5nm TSMC | 4nm TSMC | 5nm TSMC | 5nm TSMC | 7nm TSMC | 7nm TSMC | 7nm TSMC | 14nm GloFo |
| Platform Name | SP7 | SP7 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP6 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP3 | SP3 | SP3 | SP3 |
| Socket | TBD | TBD | LGA 6096 (SP5) | LGA 6096 (SP5) | LGA 6096 | LGA 4844 | LGA 6096 | LGA 6096 | LGA 6096 | LGA 4094 | LGA 4094 | LGA 4094 | LGA 4094 |
| Max Core Count | TBD | 96 | 128 | 192 | 128 | 64 | 128 | 96 | 96 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 32 |
| Max Thread Count | TBD | 192 | 256 | 384 | 256 | 128 | 256 | 192 | 192 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 64 |
| Max L3 Cache | TBD | TBD | 1536 MB | 384 MB | 384 MB | 256 MB | 256 MB | 1152 MB | 384 MB | 768 MB | 256 MB | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Chiplet Design | TBD | 8 CCD's (1 CCX per CCD) + 2 IOD? | 16 CCD's (1CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 12 CCD's (1CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 16 CCD's (1CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 8 CCD's (1CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 12 CCD's (1 CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 12 CCD's (1 CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 12 CCD's (1 CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 8 CCD's (1 CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 8 CCD's (1 CCX per CCD) + 1 IOD | 8 CCD's (2 CCX's per CCD) + 1 IOD | 4 CCD's (2 CCX's per CCD) |
| Memory Support | TBD | DDR5-12800 | DDR5-6000? | DDR5-6400 | DDR5-6400 | DDR5-5200 | DDR5-5600 | DDR5-4800 | DDR5-4800 | DDR4-3200 | DDR4-3200 | DDR4-3200 | DDR4-2666 |
| Memory Channels | TBD | 16-Channel (SP7) | 12 Channel (SP5) | 12 Channel | 12 Channel | 6-Channel | 12 Channel | 12 Channel | 12 Channel | 8 Channel | 8 Channel | 8 Channel | 8 Channel |
| PCIe Gen Support | TBD | 128-192 PCIe Gen 6 | TBD | 128 PCIe Gen 5 | 128 PCIe Gen 5 | 96 Gen 5 | 128 Gen 5 | 128 Gen 5 | 128 Gen 5 | 128 Gen 4 | 128 Gen 4 | 128 Gen 4 | 64 Gen 3 |
| TDP (Max) | TBD | ~600W | 500W (cTDP 600W) | 500W (cTDP 450-500W) | 400W (cDP 320-400W) | 70-225W | 320W (cTDP 400W) | 400W | 400W | 280W | 280W | 280W | 200W |
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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