Intel’s share of the x86 processor market dropped below 70% in the second quarter of 2026, a level the company has not seen since 1995, according to data published by Mercury Research and reported by CRN. AMD’s unit share climbed to 30.7% over the same stretch, a new high-water mark for the Santa Clara chipmaker and the clearest sign yet that the x86 duopoly is tilting. The shift is not confined to one segment. AMD gained ground in desktops, laptops, and servers at once, something that has rarely happened in the same quarter across the two companies’ three-decade rivalry.

The numbers matter beyond bragging rights. Market share swings this size shape how much pricing power each company has with PC makers and cloud providers, and they influence which chips show up on store shelves heading into 2027. Here is what the data actually shows, where it came from, and what is likely to happen next.

AMD’s Record Quarter, by the Numbers

Mercury Research, the analyst firm that has tracked x86 processor shipments for more than two decades, put AMD’s overall x86 unit share at 30.7% in the second quarter of 2026, excluding IoT and semi-custom chips, against Intel’s 69.3%. CRN’s write-up of the report described the move as pushing Intel under the 70% threshold for the first time since 1995, a 31-year span. The swing was not small: Intel’s overall share fell 6.5 percentage points year over year, and AMD’s rose by the same amount, according to the CRN report.

Mercury’s broader calculation, which folds in embedded, IoT, and semi-custom silicon (the category that includes AMD’s console chips), puts AMD even higher at 34.1%, versus 65.9% for Intel. That wider number has bounced around for years because of console cycles, but the narrower “excluding embedded” figure is the one most PC and server buyers watch because it tracks general-purpose chip demand most closely.

Every individual segment also ticked in AMD’s favor. The Register, which separately covered the same Mercury report, put AMD’s desktop share at nearly 35%, compared with about 32% a year earlier, and AMD’s server share at 34.5%, up from 27.3% in the second quarter of 2025. That is a seven-point jump in servers in twelve months, a pace that would have sounded far-fetched a few years ago when AMD’s data center ambitions were still mostly about catching up, not setting records.

How Mercury Research Tracks the x86 Market

Mercury Research is one of the few independent firms that publishes quarterly x86 processor shipment estimates for both AMD and Intel, drawing on sell-in data from OEMs, distributors, and the companies themselves. Its reports are the numbers most frequently cited by Wall Street analysts covering both chipmakers, and they are the basis for nearly every market-share headline that circulates each quarter, including the figures in this article. Mercury’s reports update quarterly, and its methodology separates desktop, mobile, and server segments in addition to publishing a blended overall figure.

One detail that matters for reading these numbers correctly: Mercury also publishes a narrower comparison that strips out AMD’s and Intel’s lower-end and embedded server parts, leaving a head-to-head of AMD’s EPYC line against Intel’s Xeon line specifically. Under that narrower lens, AMD’s share of the EPYC-versus-Xeon comparison reached 46.4% in the second quarter, according to the same Mercury data cited by The Register. That is a very different number from the 34.5% “broad server market” figure, and conflating the two is one of the most common ways this story gets misreported.

Intel’s Drop Below 70% Is a Historic Marker

Intel has effectively owned the x86 market since the architecture’s earliest days, and holding more than 70% share has been the norm for most of the last three decades. CRN’s reporting on the Mercury numbers framed the slide under 70% as a return to a market structure not seen since 1995, back when AMD’s K5 and K6 processors were still a minor irritant to Intel’s Pentium line rather than a credible alternative in servers and premium laptops.

What makes the current slide different from past AMD surges is duration and breadth. Earlier AMD gains, including the Athlon era in the early 2000s, tended to be concentrated in one segment and proved reversible once Intel shipped a competitive architecture. The 2026 numbers show AMD gaining in desktop, mobile, and server simultaneously, for multiple quarters in a row, which is a harder pattern for Intel to reverse with a single product launch.

Desktop CPUs: AMD Gains as the Market Shrinks

The desktop story has a twist: AMD’s share gain coincided with a weak overall desktop market, not a booming one. Tom’s Hardware, reporting on the same Mercury Research dataset, said desktop CPU shipments fell by nearly 20% year over year, a drop the outlet tied to high component costs across the PC supply chain. AMD still came out ahead on share even as the category contracted, which analysts generally read as a sign of real design-win strength rather than AMD simply riding a rising tide.

Desktop share had actually dipped in the first quarter of 2026 after AMD set a then-record 36.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to figures compiled by Business Stats from the same Mercury series. The rebound to roughly 35% in the second quarter suggests the dip was a temporary inventory correction rather than the start of a reversal. Desktop buyers shopping the current generation can find pricing context in our coverage of how component costs are moving, including the fact that DRAM now costs more per chip than leading-edge logic silicon, a dynamic that is squeezing margins across every desktop platform, not just one brand.

Laptops Are Where AMD Is Growing Fastest

Mobile is the segment where AMD’s year-over-year move was largest in percentage-point terms. Mercury’s Q2 2026 report put AMD’s mobile/laptop share at 28.9%, an 8.4-point increase from a year earlier, based on the year-over-year change Mercury reported alongside the headline figures. Tom’s Hardware characterized this as AMD and Intel both setting records in opposite directions: Intel shipped millions of laptop CPUs to keep its volume high, while AMD still expanded its share of a market Intel has historically dominated far more heavily on the mobile side than on desktop or server.

Laptop share matters more to OEM relationships than any other segment, because design wins for a given chassis typically lock in a year or more in advance. Gains here in 2026 are a leading indicator for what premium and midrange laptops will look like in 2027, a dynamic worth watching alongside separate reporting on where PC memory and GPU configurations are trending among the broader gaming and creator audience.

Servers: AMD EPYC Closes In on Intel Xeon

Server share is where AMD’s story has the longest track record and the most momentum. The Register’s coverage of an earlier Mercury report (covering the first quarter of 2026) already had AMD at roughly a third of server CPU shipments, with the outlet noting that AMD’s server volumes “grew strongly” that quarter even as desktop demand cooled. By the second quarter, broad server share reached 34.5%, up from 27.3% a year earlier, and the narrower EPYC-versus-Xeon comparison put AMD at 46.4%, nearly even with Intel.

That trajectory is why cloud providers and hyperscalers have become a central battleground for both companies’ next-generation parts, and why Intel’s own forthcoming parts have drawn so much attention. Intel has said its upcoming Nova Lake CPU core will debut on desktop before reaching the data center, a sequencing confirmed by Intel VP Robert Hallock, which is the opposite order from AMD’s plan to launch EPYC “Venice,” its Zen 6 server chip, ahead of the consumer Zen 6 desktop lineup. Readers tracking the cache and core-count details on Intel’s side can find more in our report on leaked Nova Lake core and power specifications, and on AMD’s side in our piece on how Intel’s new cache approach is positioned against AMD’s X3D lead.

AMD vs. Intel: Q2 2026 Market Share by Segment

Segment (Q2 2026)AMD shareIntel shareSource
Overall x86 (excl. embedded/IoT/semi-custom)30.7%69.3%Mercury Research via CRN
Overall x86 (incl. embedded/IoT/semi-custom)34.1%65.9%Mercury Research via CRN
PC CPUs overall30.3%69.7%Mercury Research via Tom’s Hardware
Desktop CPUs~34.9%~65.1%Mercury Research via The Register
Mobile/laptop CPUs28.9%71.1%Mercury Research via Tom’s Hardware
Server CPUs (broad market)34.5%65.5%Mercury Research via The Register
Server CPUs (EPYC vs. Xeon only)46.4%53.6%Mercury Research via The Register

Note the gap between the “broad server market” row and the “EPYC vs. Xeon only” row. The broad figure includes lower-end and legacy parts that skew toward Intel, while the narrower comparison isolates the two companies’ current flagship server lines, where AMD is now nearly at parity.

AMD’s Multi-Quarter Climb

PeriodAMD desktop shareAMD server shareAMD overall x86 share
Q2 2025~32%27.3%~24.2%*
Q4 202536.4% (then-record)28.8%29.2%
Q1 202633.2% (pullback)33.2%n/a**
Q2 2026~34.9%34.5%30.7%

*The Q2 2025 overall figure is not separately published. It is implied by Mercury’s reported 6.5-percentage-point year-over-year gain cited by CRN. **Mercury did not publish a standalone Q1 2026 overall x86 figure in the sources reviewed for this article. Desktop and server figures for that quarter come from The Register and Business Stats, respectively, and the coincidence of both landing at 33.2% reflects two separate segment calculations, not a single blended number.

What’s Actually Driving the Shift

CRN’s reporting pointed to Intel’s own supply constraints as a direct contributor to AMD’s gains, meaning Intel has not always had enough chips to meet demand in certain segments, pushing some of that demand to AMD by default rather than by pure design-win competition. That supply dynamic has been a recurring theme through 2026, compounding a separate industry-wide memory shortage that has pushed DRAM prices higher across both companies’ platforms.

Beyond supply, AMD’s server momentum reflects several years of EPYC generations that have closed the core-count and efficiency gap with Xeon, while its laptop gains reflect broader OEM adoption of Ryzen mobile silicon in mainstream and premium notebooks. None of this happened in a single quarter. The acceleration visible in the Q2 2026 data is the compounding result of design wins that were struck twelve to twenty-four months earlier, which is also why a single strong Intel launch is unlikely to reverse the trend overnight.

Industry Reaction to the Numbers

Mercury Research president Dean McCarron, whose firm produced the underlying data, was quoted saying “AMD’s total unit shipments and total market share reached new record highs in the second quarter of 2026, with a sequential share gain of 0.7% and an on-year gain of 6.5%,” a statement reported in coverage of the Q2 2026 report republished by Yahoo Finance. That framing, from the analyst firm closest to the raw shipment data, is the clearest on-record confirmation that the gains are broad-based rather than a one-off blip in a single product category.

CRN’s own coverage of the report leaned on the historical angle, noting that Intel’s slide under 70% returns the company’s x86 position to territory last seen three decades ago. The Register, meanwhile, emphasized the desktop market’s broader weakness, framing AMD’s share gain there as happening despite a shrinking pie rather than because of a growing one. Tom’s Hardware’s write-up focused on the laptop numbers specifically, describing AMD as setting all-time share records in mobile even as Intel shipped higher absolute laptop volumes. A separate summary from Guru3d echoed the same desktop-shipment decline alongside AMD’s record share. Reading all four outlets alongside each other gives a more complete picture than any single one’s framing on its own.

Historical Context: A Three-Decade Rivalry

AMD and Intel have traded blows over x86 share since the mid-1990s, when AMD’s K5 and K6 chips first gave Intel’s Pentium line real competition on price and, eventually, performance. AMD’s Athlon processors pushed share gains further in the early 2000s, and the original Opteron line briefly made AMD a serious server contender before Intel’s Core architecture reasserted dominance for most of the 2010s. AMD’s modern comeback traces back to the 2017 launch of its Zen architecture under the Ryzen and EPYC brands, which rebuilt the company’s roadmap from a position of minimal server share into the double-digit, then high-20s, and now 30%-plus territory reflected in the current Mercury data.

What is unusual about 2026 specifically is that AMD is gaining in every segment at once during a period when Intel is also actively shipping new architectures of its own, rather than coasting on an aging lineup. That makes the current share shift harder to dismiss as a temporary byproduct of Intel stumbling, and more consistent with a structural change in how OEMs and cloud buyers are allocating orders between the two companies.

The Competitive Response: Nova Lake, Panther Lake, Zen 6, and Venice

Both companies have next-generation architectures in flight that will shape whether AMD’s Q2 2026 numbers mark a plateau or a floor. Intel’s Panther Lake is positioned as its 2026 mobile and client architecture, while Nova Lake is the follow-on desktop and client platform expected to carry Intel’s competitive response into 2027. Intel VP Robert Hallock has confirmed that Nova Lake’s new CPU core will appear on desktop before it reaches Intel’s data center lineup, a sequencing decision that puts more immediate pressure on AMD’s desktop share than on its server share.

AMD’s own answer is EPYC “Venice,” built on its Zen 6 architecture, which AMD has signaled will arrive in the server lineup before the equivalent Zen 6 desktop parts land, the reverse of Intel’s sequencing. That means the next several quarters of Mercury data will likely show the two companies pulling in opposite directions on timing: Intel defending desktop first, AMD defending and extending server share first. Enthusiasts tracking leaked specifications for AMD’s current-generation desktop parts can see one example of how granular this competition has gotten in our coverage of a leaked Ryzen 9 5900X3D cache configuration, part of AMD’s continued push to defend its gaming and workstation desktop segment specifically.

Market Impact: What Investors and Buyers Should Take From This

There is no independently sourced, report-specific stock price move tied directly to this particular Mercury dataset in the coverage reviewed for this article, and this piece will not invent one. What the reporting does establish is a structural shift in the underlying business each company reports to investors every quarter: a sustained x86 share gain of this size changes the revenue mix Intel and AMD each report from PC and server chips, independent of either company’s separate AI accelerator business. AMD’s data center unit, which already spans both EPYC CPUs and Instinct accelerators, benefits doubly from server share gains that arrive alongside strong accelerator demand, a dynamic covered separately in our report on AMD’s AI chip demand outpacing available supply.

For PC buyers and IT procurement teams, the practical takeaway is that AMD platforms are no longer a secondary sourcing option in most categories. Desktop, laptop, and server buyers now have genuinely competitive AMD options at close to Intel’s own shipment volumes in several categories, which should keep pricing pressure on both companies into 2027 rather than letting either settle into a comfortable monopoly position in any one segment.

Competitive Comparison: Where Each Company Still Leads

Despite AMD’s gains, Intel still ships the majority of x86 processors in every segment Mercury tracks, and its laptop lead in particular remains wide at 71.1% versus AMD’s 28.9%. Intel’s scale advantage also means it retains deeper relationships with budget and mainstream OEMs, where AMD has historically had less penetration than in gaming and premium mobile categories. AMD’s strongest relative position is in the EPYC-versus-Xeon flagship server comparison, where it is now effectively at parity, and in desktop, where its roughly 35% share is its highest recorded level outside the brief Q4 2025 peak of 36.4%.

The practical read for anyone comparing the two companies today: Intel still wins on raw volume and OEM breadth, AMD wins on share momentum and flagship server competitiveness, and neither company’s position will be settled for good until Nova Lake, Panther Lake, and EPYC Venice have all shipped in volume.

Predictions: Where Share Goes From Here

  • AMD’s server share is likely to keep climbing through the EPYC Venice launch window, given the multi-quarter trend already visible in the 27.3%-to-34.5% climb over the past year.
  • Intel’s desktop share should stabilize or partially recover once Nova Lake ships, since Intel has explicitly sequenced that architecture’s new core to debut on desktop first.
  • The gap between “broad server market” share and the narrower EPYC-vs-Xeon comparison will keep causing confusion in casual reporting, since the two numbers (34.5% vs. 46.4% for AMD in Q2 2026) measure different things.
  • Laptop share is the segment most likely to keep favoring AMD through 2027, given the scale of its year-over-year gain and the lead time OEM design wins require.
  • Intel’s supply situation, not just its architecture roadmap, will likely remain a swing factor in whether AMD’s share gains continue at the current pace or moderate once Intel’s output stabilizes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is AMD’s current CPU market share?
According to Mercury Research data reported by CRN, AMD held 30.7% of the overall x86 CPU market in the second quarter of 2026, excluding embedded, IoT, and semi-custom chips. Including those categories, AMD’s share rises to 34.1%.

Why did Intel’s market share fall below 70%?
Mercury Research’s Q2 2026 report put Intel’s overall x86 share at 69.3%, a level CRN’s coverage noted had not been seen since 1995. The decline reflects AMD’s gains across desktop, laptop, and server segments combined with supply constraints that affected Intel’s own output in certain categories, according to CRN’s reporting.

Is AMD ahead of Intel in servers now?
Not on the broad server market measure, where AMD held 34.5% versus Intel’s 65.5% in Q2 2026. But in Mercury’s narrower comparison of AMD’s EPYC line against Intel’s Xeon line specifically, AMD reached 46.4%, nearly matching Intel’s 53.6%, per data reported by The Register.

What is driving AMD’s laptop CPU share gains?
Mercury’s data shows AMD’s mobile/laptop share reaching 28.9% in Q2 2026, up 8.4 percentage points year over year, the largest percentage-point gain of any segment Mercury tracks, according to the year-over-year change cited in coverage of the report.

Will Intel’s Nova Lake reverse AMD’s share gains?
It’s too early to say. Intel VP Robert Hallock has confirmed Nova Lake’s new CPU core will debut on desktop before reaching Intel’s data center lineup, which could help Intel’s desktop numbers specifically, but no shipment or benchmark data confirming a share reversal exists yet in the public record.

Who publishes AMD and Intel’s market share data?
Mercury Research is the independent analyst firm whose quarterly x86 shipment estimates underpin nearly every AMD-versus-Intel market share report, including the Q2 2026 figures covered here. Its reports are published quarterly and cited by outlets including CRN, The Register, Tom’s Hardware, and Guru3d.

Does this market share data include AMD’s console chips?
Mercury’s narrower “excluding embedded/IoT/semi-custom” figure of 30.7% strips out console silicon. Its broader figure of 34.1%, which includes those categories, is higher partly because it counts semi-custom chips like the ones AMD supplies for game consoles.

What does this mean for PC prices in 2026 and 2027?
Closer competition between AMD and Intel across every segment tends to keep pricing pressure on both companies. Combined with ongoing memory-pricing pressure across the industry, buyers are likely to see continued competitive pricing on both AMD and Intel platforms rather than either company gaining enough dominance to raise prices unchecked.