Jon Peddie Research (JPR) announced on September 3, 2026, that PC GPU shipments reached 75.5 million units in the second quarter of 2026. That marked a 10.4% increase quarter-over-quarter and a 1.1% increase year-over-year, meaning GPU supply outpaced the prior year even as the broader PC market remained soft.
However, the growth was not evenly distributed across the market. Notebook GPUs grew 16.8% quarter-over-quarter, while desktop GPUs fell 4%. Discrete GPUs (dGPUs) rose 12.2%, though JPR did not break that figure down by PC form factor. What these numbers depict is not a boom confined to desktop cards, but a PC GPU market—one that includes CPU-integrated graphics—tilting toward notebooks.
Three markets within the 75.5 million figure
The 75.5 million units JPR reported represents the total number of GPUs shipped for use in PCs. This includes both GPUs integrated into CPUs and standalone GPUs, spanning desktops, notebooks, and workstations. The denominator here differs from graphics card shipment figures.
JPR puts the GPU attach rate at 120%. This reflects an average of 1.2 GPUs per PC, a figure that can exceed 100% because some configurations include both a CPU-integrated GPU and a discrete GPU. This is also why PC unit counts and GPU unit counts don't align.
Furthermore, JPR tallies overall PC GPUs, discrete GPUs, desktop GPUs, and notebook GPUs as separate categories. Even when comparing growth rates for the same quarter, the scope of each category is not consistent. You cannot add or subtract these four figures to derive a breakdown.
Notebooks and desktops moved in opposite directions
In JPR's Q2 2026 report, overall PC GPUs grew 10.4% quarter-over-quarter, discrete GPUs grew 12.2%, and notebook GPUs grew 16.8%, while desktop GPUs fell 4%.
- Increase
- Decrease (absolute value)
データを表で見る
| Increase (%) | Decrease (absolute value) (%) | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall PC GPU | 10.4 | — |
| Discrete GPU | 12.2 | — |
| Desktop | — | 4 |
| Notebook | 16.8 | — |
What can be confirmed from this comparison is that the overall increase in PC GPUs coincided with notebook growth, while desktop moved in the opposite direction. The 12.2% growth in discrete GPUs includes both desktop and notebook segments, but their individual contributions are not disclosed.
The 4% decline in desktop GPUs also doesn't measure finished graphics cards alone—it covers the entire desktop PC GPU category, including CPU-integrated graphics. As a result, this 4% figure cannot be used as a decline rate for the card market, nor can the 12.2% figure be used as a growth rate for the card market.
Notebooks rose to 78% of client CPU mix as well
The shift in PC form factors is also reflected in the client CPU mix that JPR included in the same report. According to JPR's published chart, the notebook share of client CPUs rose 7 percentage points, from 71% in Q2 2025 to 78% in Q2 2026, while the desktop share fell 7 percentage points, from 29% to 22%.
- Desktop
- Notebook
データを表で見る
| Desktop (%) | Notebook (%) | |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | 29 | 71 |
| Q1 2026 | 27 | 73 |
| Q2 2026 | 22 | 78 |
The notebook share had already climbed to 73% in the preceding Q1 2026. The Q2 rise in GPU shipments can be read as an intensification of a shift in PC form factors that was already underway. That said, because CPU mix data doesn't indicate discrete GPU attach rates, it cannot be concluded that gaming notebooks alone drove the growth.
Global PC market figures don't point in a simple, uniform direction either. According to IDC, global PC shipments in the second quarter totaled 68.2 million units, down 4.9% year-over-year. Meanwhile, JPR's PC GPU shipments rose 1.1% year-over-year. Because the research firms, scope of coverage, and points in the distribution chain differ, this gap cannot be directly calculated as a rise in GPU attach rate. Still, the fact that PC unit counts and GPU unit counts moved in different directions is an important consideration when examining the market.
AMD's 21% share includes CPU-integrated GPUs
The denominator for vendor market share figures is also the overall PC GPU category. According to JPR's published chart, AMD's share of the overall PC GPU market rose 7 percentage points, from 14% in Q2 2025 to 21% in Q2 2026, while Intel's share fell 5 percentage points, from 61% to 56%. Nvidia's share dropped 1 percentage point, from 24% to 23%.
- AMD
- Intel
- Nvidia
データを表で見る
| AMD (%) | Intel (%) | Nvidia (%) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | 14 | 61 | 24 |
| Q1 2026 | 20 | 57 | 23 |
| Q2 2026 | 21 | 56 | 23 |
This 21% figure does not represent AMD's market share of desktop Radeon graphics cards. For both AMD and Intel, shipments of processors with integrated GPUs carry substantial weight. Reinterpreting these three vendors' figures as a competitive picture of the discrete graphics card market would fall outside the scope of what JPR actually tallied.
In AMD's Form 10-Q, the company reported that client CPU unit volume rose 34% year-over-year in the second quarter, attributed primarily to Ryzen mobile processors, while average selling price fell 6%. Intel disclosed that its client unit volume fell 8% in the same quarter, with average selling price rising 27%, a shift explained largely by a move toward higher-priced products. This earnings data indicates that AMD's mobile volume growth and Intel's volume decline are consistent with the direction of JPR's overall GPU share figures, though it does not prove the exact contribution to the share shift.
What remains to confirm before reading shipment growth as demand growth
The shipments JPR counts are not the same as actual consumer purchases. Products that move from manufacturers to PC makers or distributors can sit as inventory across quarter boundaries. JPR notes that part of the reason client CPU shipments rose 9.4% quarter-over-quarter in Q2 was a restocking of OEM inventory that had been drawn down in Q1.
For desktop graphics cards specifically, JPR separately tracks the add-in board (AIB) market. The most recently published figures, for Q1 2026, showed shipments of 11.8 million units, down 0.6% quarter-over-quarter but up 28.3% year-over-year. With the Q2 figures not yet published, the absolute numbers and vendor shares for the card market cannot currently be confirmed.
The published data also warrants a note of caution when making comparisons. Comparing the 75.5 million units in JPR's Q2 report against the 70.3 million units in the Q1 report yields a 7.4% increase, which does not match the reported 10.4% figure. Since the public materials contain no revision history, the 10.4% figure should be treated as JPR's officially published growth rate, without attempting to back-calculate an unpublished baseline.
The outline of Q2 2026 is this: overall PC GPUs and discrete GPUs grew, notebook GPUs grew while desktop GPUs declined by form factor, and AMD gained share within a denominator that includes CPU-integrated GPUs. To assess demand for desktop cards specifically, one would need to layer in retail inventory levels, actual selling prices, and consumer sales figures alongside the specialized AIB shipment reports.