According to Jon Peddie Research, graphics chip shipments in Q1 jumped 44 percent year-on-year, while 2009 showed unexpectedly high growth of 11 percent compared to 2008.

As usual, Intel led the pack thanks to its IGPs and Clarksdale integrated graphics, but Nvidia and AMD also had a pretty good quarter despite the seasonal slowdown. Intel reported $1.761 billion in chipset revenue, Nvidia managed $982 million, while AMD shipped $409 million worth of GPUs. Both Nvidia and AMD gained some ground in notebook graphics, both integrated and discrete, and AMD gained a bit in the desktop discrete segment.

AMD's Q1 market share increased from 21.7 percent to 24 percent sequentially, while Nvidia jumped from 26.5 percent to 31 percent. Both companies grew at Intel's expense, as its share shrunk from 51.1 percent to 43.5 percent.

Despite Nvidia's rather good show, it's clear it suffered due to a lack of competitive products over the past several quarters. For example, AMD'smarket share increased by 96.3 percent over the past year, while Nvidia's share grew by 41.9 percent.