Dreamware Tech and Computer Mania say Nvidia is the most popular graphics card brand among their customers, while their clientele now prefers AMD over Intel on the CPU side.
The hardware retailers said the heightened demand for AMD processors represents a significant shift over previous trends, which saw considerable uniformity between AMD and Intel.
MyBroadband asked Computer Mania and Dreamware Tech about the most popular graphics card and CPU brands sold through their stores.
“Nvidia is far more popular with our customers than AMD. This is because of their longstanding, positive reputation within the South African and global market and overall GPU performance,” Dreamware Tech said.
“Although consumers perceive Nvidia as cutting-edge regarding innovation in the graphics card space, AMD regularly competes with Nvidia on performance (excluding their high-end units).”
“Despite this, they still aren’t as popular within the South African market,” it added.
According to the retailer, this aligns with historical trends in graphics card brand choice among its customers.
However, it noted that AMD cards proved popular in the cryptocurrency mining sector for a brief while.
“Historically, Nvidia has been the more popular card for the gaming segment, while AMD held a very prominent space in the crypto mining sector; however, this lowered significantly when the Nvidia 30-series launched,” said Dreamware Tech.
“AMD had periods where they observed an uptick in certain lines in the market, such as their RX 5000 series, which launched at an extremely competitive price point.”
However, it added that overall popularity largely remains with Nvidia.
Computer Mania’s procurement department said it focuses on selling Nvidia graphics cards in line with global market share trends, where Nvidia holds an 88% share and AMD holds 12%.
“Nvidia has long held the throne as the preferred GPU brand for both gamers and professionals,” it said.
“Despite the soaring prices of Nvidia’s RTX 10 to 40 series cards — some of which could practically fund a second-hand car purchase (I’m looking at you, RTX 4090) — these GPUs remain incredibly popular.”
“The Radeon RX 6000 and Radeon RX 7000 series haven’t quite captured the hearts of Computer Mania’s customers,” it added.
Dreamware Tech previously told MyBroadband that Ethereum’s switch to proof of stake — which put an end to the currency being mined using GPUs — resulted in a big dip in the market.
“GPU mining demand has dropped dramatically,” it said.
“While Dreamware did not sell to consumers for mining purposes during the GPU shortage, it can be assumed that other retailers who did have taken a large hit to their GPU sales.”
However, this also had a positive impact on some. Due to the high demand for graphics cards due to crypto mining, prices soared, and many gamers struggled to purchase the cards they needed due to limited stocks.
On the CPU side, Dreamware Tech said considerable uniformity between AMD and Intel had been observed until recently.
“Both brands offered various lines that fell in the optimal price-to-performance ratio and pricing/sales would invariably affect purchase decisions,” it said.
“However, the ensuing Intel CPU degradation issues prompted a significant shift to AMD for high-end CPUs.”
“Once news surfaced regarding the oxidisation issues that Intel experienced in manufacturing for a few of their lines and the resulting issues thereof, most consumers grew wary of spending substantial amounts of money on CPUs that could prematurely fail or lose performance,” it added.
Computer Mania agrees.
“Once upon a time, our shelves were an Intel-exclusive CPU haven — until AMD swooped in with their Ryzen lineup,” it said.
“These days, AMD has confidently chiselled away a substantial chunk from Intel’s once unassailable position. AMD Ryzen is now the CPU of choice for most of our gamers.”
Regarding buying trends surrounding processors, Dreamware Tech said these have remained relatively consistent, with most enthusiast gamers and PC builders opting for new products from their preferred brand when they upgrade.
“Standard users/gamers tend to take a more conservative stance and use their CPUs until they either fail or, see substantial performance bottlenecks in-game or during workloads,” it added.
