AMD showed the biggest jump in quarter-to-quarter growth at 30% followed by Intel at 21%. Intel shipped the most parts at 63 million, over twice as many as its nearest competitor Nvidia. "A total of 119.45 million units were shipped in the third quarter, exceeding the record 111 million units that shipped in Q3, 2008," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research in Tiburon, California. "So the market has caught up with, and exceeded, last year's highs. The crash of fall 2008 is now behind us."

Notebook shipments led the market again topping out at almost 56 million units with discrete graphics processors jumping more than 36% over Q2 indicating what the OEMs think will be the hot sellers in Q4.

Peddie notes that, "Integrated graphics in notebooks, which includes the popular netbooks, increased 27% over Q2 - a great gain but less than discrete. Netbooks will remain popular but they will not have the high market share they had during the recession when they were just introduced. Rather, consumers are expected to "buy up" in the next quarter.

The channel is full and the products in it will have to be sold off before the OEMs and their resellers take a chance of seeing the channel becoming overstuffed. That suggests that while Q4 is typically a good quarter for PCs, the quarter-to-quarter growth in Q4 may not be as robust as Q3. Graphics are a great leading indicator," Peddie said, "The graphics go in before the PC is built or shipped.