AMD claws more market-share from Intel

AMD is still making strides in the server market at Intel's expense as the larger company waits to see if a new processor can reverse its slide.

AMD on Monday said it increased its share of the x86 server processor market to 25.9 per cent, a number confirmed by Mercury Research's Dean McCarron, who tracks market share figures. Intel now holds 72.9 per cent of the overall market for x86 processors, while AMD has 21.6 per cent.

Intel's share decreased from 82.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2005, while AMD's increased from 16.2 per cent over the same period.

Via Technologies is the third player in the mix with 5.5 per cent share during the second quarter of 2006 but that figure was inflated due to end-of-life shipments of the company's C3 processor and is likely to fall over the rest of the year, McCarron said.

AMD has been picking away at Intel's server market share for several years based on the superior performance and power consumption of its Opteron processor. But Intel fired back last month with a new Xeon processor based on its Core micro-architecture that appears to be outperforming current Opteron processors on several tasks.

Intel is pinning its hopes of resurrecting its market share - and its stock price - on the new Core generation of processors. The company launched the Core 2 Duo for desktops and laptops last week during an event at its headquarters, and systems based on the new chips will start appearing over the coming weeks.

CNET News.com's Stephen Shankland contributed to this report

Tom Krazit writes for CNET News.com