CPU power, China's local PC motherboard force

After experiencing the pain of 2023, the global PC market is finally coming out, and manufacturers in the relevant industry chain are looking forward to it in 2024.

Market data also supports expectations, and after entering 2024, IDC and Gartner have successively released their reports on global PC shipments for the fourth quarter of 2023. Although there are some differences in the data, they all send a positive signal that the PC market is expected to recover.

In the fourth quarter of last year, global PC shipments were around 65 million units, and Gartner's data was 63.3 million units, a slight increase of 0.3% over the previous year, which also marked the first positive growth in the PC market after 8 consecutive quarters of decline, IDC's shipment data was 67.1 million units, a year-on-year decline, even so, both companies believe that the market contraction has bottomed out, and positive growth is expected in 2024.

With the recovery of the market and the AI boom, PC main chip and motherboard manufacturers are expected to deliver a different answer sheet from the past few years in 2024. This article mainly focuses on the market development of PC motherboards.

01

Introduction to PC motherboards

The motherboard is the carrier of PC hardware, responsible for receiving and processing instructions and data from various hardware, and is the most important component of the PC, also known as the motherboard. There are various slots and interfaces on the PC motherboard, which can be connected to hardware devices such as CPU, memory, hard disk, graphics card, sound card, network card, etc., and can also be connected to various external devices.

The role of the PC motherboard mainly includes the following aspects: 1. Optimize power distribution, the motherboard can supply power to each part of the PC, and distribute the current to different components in the best distribution way; 2. Connect each component, receive and process information, and make each component work together; 3. The motherboard is equipped with software and hardware monitoring circuits such as control power supply and temperature to ensure the stable operation of the PC; 4. The motherboard can access a variety of different devices to expand the functions of the PC, such as accessing keyboards, mice, printers, etc.

Computer (including PC) motherboards can be divided into three categories according to the application: desktops, notebooks, and servers. Laptop motherboards are customized by model and are usually not interchangeable between models, while about 90% of desktop motherboards are based on the ATX standard and have a high degree of compatibility. Server motherboards are designed for server applications, support at least dual processors, and have unique chipset configurations. In terms of market share, notebook motherboards are about 60%, desktops are about 30%, and servers are about 10%. When it comes to PCs, gamers are the main driving force behind the motherboard market.

02

The motherboard is deeply integrated with the CPU brand

Globally, the top PC motherboard brands include: ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Biostar, ASRock, ECS, Colorful, as well as ONDA, SOYO, MAXSUN and Shadowlane. Among them, ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte have the highest comprehensive level of market influence and market share, and most of the products are mid-to-high-end series, while Yingtai and ASRock focus on cost performance, and MSI and Colorful are well-known gaming motherboard manufacturers with a high reputation in the gaming field.

At present, the global PC motherboard market is almost monopolized by Taiwanese manufacturers, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock are the region's manufacturers, these four are also the first to enter the computer motherboard market, after nearly 30 years of development, with many blockbuster star products, with a high brand influence. In addition, these companies have a large number of talents, technology, and capital, which allow them to continuously innovate products, reduce costs, and expand brand advantages.

In November 2023, China's total sales volume in China decreased by about 1% month-on-month, but increased by 9% year-on-year, reflecting the recovery of the market. Of all the motherboard manufacturers, ASUS is the best performer, with significant growth, and the company is also confident in its shipments in 2024, with plans to grow by 10%. The sales performance of several other big brands is not ideal, and Gigabyte, MSI, Colorful and Mingxuan have all experienced varying degrees of decline.

Overall, whether it is the global market or in Chinese mainland, the PC motherboard industry is highly concentrated, the total market share of the top four manufacturers is about 70%, the profit level of the industry is relatively low, and the profit margin of most companies is below 10%.

Since CPU is the core chip of PC, and in the world, there are only two CPU manufacturers left that can mass produce commercial needs, Intel and AMD, therefore, these two CPU manufacturers have a great influence on the PC motherboard market, as well as motherboard manufacturers, and have a great right to speak, especially Intel, most motherboard manufacturers have to follow the development rhythm of Intel CPU to push products.

Before AMD's re-emergence, Intel has the absolute right to speak on PC motherboard manufacturers, because Intel CPU and AMD's motherboard are not compatible, during the period when AMD's product market share was very low, motherboard manufacturers almost only chose Intel's chipset, the chipset is the core chip on the motherboard, the main role is to let the motherboard identify the CPU, and it can work normally after being correct, different chipsets correspond to different CPUs, and the right motherboard chipset can be compatible with the CPU in order to boot normally. In this case, Intel's chipset has dominated the world for a long time, and even today, with the rise of AMD, the market share of Intel-related products is still very high.

Intel and AMD have three types of chipsets: high-end, mid-range, and low-end, and each generation of CPU will launch a new generation of chipset, so each motherboard has a CPU and chipset that is suitable for it.

On the Intel side, the high-end chipset is mainly the Z-series Z790, the mid-range chipset is mainly the B-series B760, and the low-end is the H-series. Among them, the B and H series do not support CPU overclocking, and only the Z series does. In terms of AMD, the high-end chipset is mainly the X670 of the X series, the mid-range chipset is mainly the B650 of the B series, and the low-end chipset is mainly the A620 of the A series. Among them, the A series does not support CPU overclocking, while the B and X series do.

In the past 2023, due to the depression of the global PC market, there will naturally be no major movement in the motherboard chipset market. Intel released the 700 series, which is an upgraded version of the 600 series. At the same time, AMD only launched the B650 series. Overall, the motherboard chipset market in 2023 is relatively flat.

Entering 2024, the market is in the process of recovery, but the chill is still there, and the first quarter is the traditional off-season, and the market demand is limited. In this case, it is also difficult for the PC motherboard market to have major changes. According to news from motherboard manufacturers, the new generation of motherboard chipsets from Intel and AMD is not expected to be released until the third quarter.

Intel's next-generation chipset will be the 800 series, which will be paired with Arrow Lake processors and feature an LGA1851 package interface. Although the just-released Meteor Lake was originally intended for desktops, it did not perform well and could only be used on laptops, so a "vest" version similar to the 14th Gen Core appeared, while the desktop version still used LGA1700 interfaces and the motherboard specifications remained unchanged.

AMD's chipset is expected to be upgraded to the 700 series and will be powered by Zen5-based Ryzen 8000 series processors, and AMD will continue to use the AM5 interface.

03

China's local PC motherboard brands still have work to do

In the PC motherboard market in Chinese mainland, ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte occupy more than 60% of the share, with the market shares of these three companies being 28.26%, 16.92% and 16.66% respectively.

Chinese mainland local brand Colorful is catching up with the above three major manufacturers, the market share has reached 15.36%, the local brand behind Colorful is Onda, the market share is less than 10%, other enterprises, such as Mingxuan and other enterprises are smaller, brand influence is low, product prices are also low, profits are not high, market share is less than 3%. Especially after the epidemic, the demand for low-end motherboards has been sluggish, and it has become more difficult to operate.

In addition to Rainbow, Onda and Mingxuan, in recent years, as the security issues of the chip component supply chain have become more and more prominent, more enterprises, especially CPU companies, have begun to develop their own PC motherboards to control more autonomy, and the typical representative is Loongson Zhongke.

At the end of 2023, Loongson released the latest CPU product 3A6000, and its supporting computer motherboard is also self-developed by Loongson Zhongke. In addition, most of the other accessories are also from domestic manufacturers, the memory and hard disk are from Unisplendour and Dahua respectively, and the case power supply is from Patriot. Only the graphics card is powered by AMD's RX580 chip.

Loongson's motherboard also integrates the company's self-developed 7A2000 bridge, in addition to controlling interfaces such as USB, audio, network, etc., it also integrates Loongson's self-developed GPU, that is to say, 7A2000 bridge with GPU function, even if it is not equipped with an external graphics card, this computer can still be used normally.

As mentioned above, there is a high degree of integration between major motherboard brands and major CPU manufacturers, and the motherboard products launched are all following the performance and release rhythm of Intel or AMD's CPU products. Therefore, if Chinese local manufacturers want to promote PC motherboard products to a broader market, they must improve CPU performance and iteration speed.

Loongson Zhongke's official public account once posted that the overall performance of 3A6000 has caught up with the Intel 10th generation Core 4-core CPU listed in 2020, although Intel CPU has been updated to the 14th generation, but as far as PC applications are concerned, the performance of the 10th generation Core CPU is enough to cover the needs of daily office, entertainment and games.

In terms of main frequency, the 10th generation i3 is still ahead, with a base frequency of 3.6GHz and a single core up to 4.3GHz. The main frequency of the Loongson 3A6000 is the same as the previous generation, which is a fixed 2.5GHz, however, this time it has added hyper-threading technology, which has been upgraded from 4 cores and 4 threads to 4 cores and 8 threads.

Judging from the theoretical performance test and daily use experience, the Loongson 3A6000 has indeed caught up with the 10th generation Core 4-core CPU released in 2020, and this is achieved under the premise that the frequency is more than 1GHz lower than that of competing products.

According to the introduction of Hu Weiwu, chairman of Loongson, Loongson is also practicing Intel's Tick-Tock strategy and is currently in the stage of polishing the architecture. If the next generation of Loongson CPUs can use a more advanced process than 12nm, the performance will be stronger.

In fact, Loongson CPUs are catching up very quickly. In 2002, Loongson No. 1 was released, and the performance of that product was only 5% of the mainstream CPU at that time, and the 3A5000 released in 2021 could reach 50% of the mainstream performance at that time (almost the level of the fourth-generation Core), and the 3A6000 in 2023 has caught up with the mainstream level.

In today's industrial environment, as long as the product is done well, and the software and hardware ecological construction is paid attention to, the market share will increase steadily.

In addition to Loongson Zhongke, other local manufacturers in China are also making continuous efforts and are deeply integrating with local CPU manufacturers. This week, Beijing Jite Intelligent Technology said it had made the first computer board entirely using Chinese technology: the GM7-2602-02, which uses a standard Mini-ITX form factor and is equipped with a Chinese-developed Arm-based CPU.

The Mini-ITX motherboard has an M.2 slot, a 16x PCIe slot and rear I/O, including VGA, HDMI, audio jacks, two Ethernet ports, and two USB 3.0 ports. It's worth noting that it has two SODIMM DDR4 memory slots and a CPU integrated with the motherboard (no associated slots), which makes the GM7-2602-02 similar to the motherboard in a NUC or mini PC.

It is reported that the CPU used in the motherboard is an 8-core Feiteng D2000, using Arm architecture, the 4-core version of this CPU can play games, which means that GM7-2602-02 should have the same ability, it can use a discrete graphics card, and it can be compatible with products developed by local GPU manufacturers in China. Overall, this motherboard is very friendly for gaming PC applications.

04

epilogue

Although the global PC market is close to saturation, the incremental market is very limited, and the market recovery rate in the first half of 2024 is still difficult to determine, the large enough stock market and the development trend of the industrial upward cycle in the next few years still provide enough expectation and imagination for global PC motherboard and key chip component manufacturers. Good products and market influence will still bring huge revenue to big brand enterprises.

In the past five years, the overall market size of China's PC motherboards has been growing steadily, with the market size increasing from 153.48 billion yuan in 2017 to 276.36 billion yuan in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.5%. With the development of information technology and the popularization of the Internet, the demand for PCs has gradually increased, and as the core components of computers, the demand for motherboards will continue to rise, and it is expected that in 2023~2027, the market size of China's PC motherboards will increase from 305.57 billion yuan to 453.41 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.4%.

This provides enough market space for internationally renowned brands and local PC motherboard companies, especially for local brand manufacturers, in the current and future years of the industrial environment, there will be more motivation to do a good job in products, as well as space and opportunities to expand the market.