As with other segments, the graphics add-in board market has shown good signs of recovery in Q3, with Jon Peddie Research reporting that card shipments reached 20.34 million units, a solid 21% sequential increase, although on-year it means a 7.2% slip.

While in Q3 it had good results, the AIB segment is a 'late bloomer' as the graphics market as a whole - which includes discrete and integrated GPUs, has begun its rise in Q2, going up 31% compared to Q1. In the Q1/Q2 time frame the AIB market remained flat, with shipments hovering around in the 16 million zone.

No much changed in the vendor battlefield in Q3 as Nvidia still ruled with a 64% unit share while AMD gained one point sequentially and reached 36%. More twists and turns are expected this quarter though as AMD has started its DirectX 11 offensive with the Radeon HD 5800 and HD 5700 series cards while Nvidia is still working away on its Fermi-based products.