PlayStation or Xbox? Coke or Pepsi? AMD or Intel? Rivalries like this stand the test of time, but no matter your preference, the winners are declared using cold, hard numbers. Unfortunately, market analysts predict that AMD Ryzen hasn’t made it out the latest generational fight unbruised, as team red’s CPU revenue is expected to decline as much as 26% in 2022.
There are several factors at play for the cloudy forecast, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore (via Seeking Alpha), including a general fall across the entire gaming PC market. It’s no secret that chip shortages have made upgrading your system more of an ordeal than it ought to be, not to mention the general cost of living on a steep rise.
Despite these drops, Intel 12th generation Alder Lake processors have found success in both the gaming CPU and mainstream markets. We’d love to say this is solely due to the impressive performance of chips like the entry-level Intel Core i5-12400, but part of the reason comes from AMD’s slow rollout of AM4, giving Intel a window in the mainstream market.
It’s not all bad news, though. The release of AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs later this year should see team red bounce back a little, minimising the impact of its decline by as little as 2% starting in 2023. This is pretty impressive, considering WCCFTech reports that the PC DIY market will continue to spiral “due to rising inflation” making upgrades that much more inaccessible.