Workstation GPUs: PC gaming’s new enemy

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All three PC GPU makers now seem like leaning more durable into AI-specific graphics playing cards, straining a good PC graphics market even additional.

A number of years in the past, PC gaming was seen as an enormous development driver for the silicon trade, fanatics, and PC makers alike. Now, the meteoric rise of AI is luring {hardware} makers away from customers, and we’re seeing much more penalties in consequence.

This week, AMD launched the Radeon AI Professional R9700 graphics card for AI workstations, alongside the Radeon AI Professional R9700S and Professional R9600D for rack computing. Intel is reportedly launching the Arc Professional B70 and Arc Professional B65 this month, almost definitely particularly for operating LLMs. And Nvidia is projected to probably skip 2026 completely for a launch of client GPUs, concentrating on promoting total techniques like Vera Rubin moderately than a client Rubin-based PC graphics card.

All of that GPU silicon might have landed on client PCs — and possibly would have, a number of years in the past. Now, we noticed GPU shipments fall late final yr due to AI hyperscalers. Now workstations have joined the group, beating up on the PC.

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The comparatively small variety of workstations offered doubtless implies that shifting the graphics silicon to workstations and datacenters won't have an infinite influence on PC GPU gross sales. However the traumatized PC market is weathering shortages of RAM and SSDs, alongside attainable scarcity of Intel CPUs and a graphics market that has undergone shortages earlier than. Just like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s again, it simply strains the system additional — and if not in shortages of GPU silicon, than the accompanying video RAM.

In a report issued Tuesday. GPU analyst Jon Peddie Analysis discovered that PC GPU shipments dropped 1.3 p.c from final quarter, uncommon when the fourth quarter is often the excessive level of the yr. GPUs offered into knowledge facilities, nonetheless, climbed 17 p.c.

JPR additionally discovered that the GPU connect price for PCs fell to 116 p.c, down 3.9 p.c sequentially. (The connect price refers back to the variety of GPUs offered per PC. On this case, a PC might have two GPUs — an built-in chip in addition to a discrete graphics card, rising the general proportion.)

Sadly, pivoting away from the PC is smart

Anybody who isn’t Nvidia has some powerful selections to make.

Intel made a robust exhibiting in its Core Extremely Collection 3 (Panther Lake) pocket book GPUs, however the market has regularly questioned when Intel would deliver its “Large Battlemage” structure to market as a desktop graphics card. Whereas it surfaced final yr, the newest report from Videocardz now positions the Intel B70 within the context of an LLM packaged stack for operating and benchmarking LLM efficiency on its multi-GPU Arc platform. (The reference has since been faraway from the Intel web page.)

The implication is that Intel could also be stealing a web page from AMD’s Radeon AI Professional R9700 card and directing its B70 structure into the AI market, moderately than pushing pixels on the PC.

Pivoting between a desktop gaming GPU and one particularly designed for the workstation isn’t that tough, comparatively. They will each use the identical fundamental silicon platform, however differ in each the hooked up reminiscence in addition to the driving force software program. Workstations use what are often known as licensed drivers written particularly by an Autodesk or a Siemens for a selected card, whereas Home windows will use Microsoft’s DirectX API, defined JPA principal Jon Peddie in an interview.

“What I believe is happening is that these guys are attempting to tiptoe into the market, however possibly don’t have fairly the [AI] functionality that Nvidia has on their machines and that AMD has of their Intuition [data center] stuff,” Peddie stated. “And they also’re saying that is type of like a bit brother AI GPU. That’s the way in which I see it enjoying out.”

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And why wouldn’t they? Workstation-class playing cards usually promote for about thrice of a desktop graphics card; present costs of an Nvidia RTX 5090 run (gulp) $3,699 on Newegg, however new RTX Professional 6000 playing cards with 96GB of GDDR7 reminiscence are promoting for about $9,000 on eBay. If AMD or Intel have been in a position to swap out PC graphics playing cards for these sorts of costs in workstations, you may argue that they’d be silly to not. (A workstation card can be utilized by a typical desktop PC, however usually isn’t — its drivers aren’t optimized for gaming.)

It’s not likely in regards to the numbers. The variety of workstations offered yearly is tiny — 7 million or so — versus the 280 million PCs that have been offered in 2025. Datacenter GPUs favor high-bandwidth reminiscence, or HBM, nevertheless it’s the reminiscence that's the concern. Graphics playing cards for each the PC and workstation usually use some taste of GDDR reminiscence. (Workstations may add error-correcting or ECC logic to stop crashes of important purposes.) However workstations additionally snap up extra of that reminiscence, too: between 32 and 48GB of reminiscence versus the 12 to 24GB of reminiscence {that a} client card makes use of.

All this implies is that any shift away from the PC will doubtless pressure the provision of PC graphics-card reminiscence additional. And the conclusion just isn't one you’ll need to hear.

“The alerts we’re getting from the suppliers and the geopolitical issues which can be happening is that we see that there's simply going to be no availability, interval,” Peddie stated. “The supply goes to be very restricted, and in order that, in flip, is simply going to push individuals to cease buying. So should you have been going to go refresh your PC or your graphics board, even in 2026, now you’re going to go, ‘possibly not.’

“The value simply went up by 50 p.c — I don’t want it that badly, proper?” Peddie added. “It’s a pleasant to have, nevertheless it’s not a should have. I’ll simply wait this out till the costs come again down — which goes to devastate PC and graphics board gross sales for the buyer.”