This page aims to show the statistics obtained from the CPU-Z online database. As a reminder, CPU-Z is a popular freeware that gathers PC systems hardware information : CPU, memory, chipset ... After the scan, the users can generate a submission file and create a new record in the database, that is named a validation. Those anonymous validations can be then used as an overclocking proof, or even as a description of a PC farm for companies.
Created in 2005, the CPU-Z database contains around 300,000 entries today and gets 3,000 new entries per week, most provided by persons who do not overclock or tweak their system. As a result, the database is a relevant representation of the general PC market. We found it then relevant to process the database in order to generate a set of statistics. The statistics are presented as two tables :
- a "snapshot" view, updated every day and based on the data gathered during the three last months ;
- the evolution on the 12 last months, updated and commented every month ;
- Motherboard Market Share
With no surprise, Asus is still leading the mainboard market. However, the proportion tends to decrease this last year. Since 2006, Asus is actually concentrating on his laptop PCs more than on the desktop mainboards. That profits to Gigabyte, #2 with 20% of the mainboards, that leaves the other competitors far behind. MSI is #3 with 8%, due to a lack of efforts on the retail sales (boxed products)(MSI concentrates on OEM). abit is #4 (not much present in Europe), and DFI #5 (the DFI mainboards are targeted to power users).
- Chipset for Intel CPU
80% of that chipset market belongs to Intel. This is not a surprise since Intel chipsets mix quality and performance. NVIDIA is #2 with 10%. Quality explains that position, but also does the exclusive compatibility with SLI. In the entry level, VIA and SiS parts are decreasing. Last but not least, ATI chipsets represent 2% of the total.
- Chipsets for AMD CPU
On AMD platform, NVIDIA is the leader, and the nForce are indeed very popular toward AMD CPUs users. However, ATI part is increasing, especially since the brand was bought by AMD : from 6% one year ago to 16% now. VIA used to be well placed, but is now below ATI with 12%. Finally, SiS decreased and is now at 3%.