According to the latest report from Mercury Research, the first three months of 2021 saw the largest yearly increase in shipments of CPUs in a quarter of a century, and second only to the final moments of 2020 in terms of raw volume. But Intel has gained a touch in the overall x86 market share in Q1 2021, whereas AMD reportedly lost out. OK, we are only talking a single percent here but the news is surprising because Intel is a good generation behind AMD in the chip wars.

Mercury Research puts that down to an increase in budget chip shipments for Chipzilla, which tallies with other figures out of the tech giant as of late. But where Intel has gained in mobile processor market share, it loses out marginally in desktop.

It seems that Intel is being utterly crushed by AMD's Ryzen processors. Despite some difficulty sourcing the top-tier chips, such as the Ryzen 9 5950X and Ryzen 9 5900X, AMD is still managing to make gains within the market predisposed to Intel processors for so long.

However, what would be more important for AMD's eyes is that it saw a 1.8 pe cent increase in server market share quarter to quarter, and 3.8 percent year on year. That means its Epyc processors are selling supremely well against Intel's Xeon chips and the market that AMD will be most determined to get more of a footing in.