It seems like Phenom II will not only be remembered as one of the best-bang-for-buck processors on the market, but rather the series that reminded AMD of what it was like to be a serious competitor. The reason for such claims arises from the fact that Mercury Research announced that as of last quarter, AMD has 20.9% of the market, which is a number this company surely hasn’t seen in a while.

Q4 2008 saw AMD snatching a 17% share compared to Intel’s 82.1%, so the latest developments have seen Intel’s share shrunk to 78.2% whereas AMD is up to “Phenomenal” 20.9%.

However, Mercury Research’s Dean McCarron added how the quarter has been defined by inventory adjustments, meaning that manufacturers have cleared the excess inventory caused by the recession, so these statistics should be taken with a grain of salt.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that AMD is getting better as Bright Side Of News also reports that a top-tier motherboard vendor has gone from 8% AMD – 92% Intel ratio to a 30% AMD – 70% Intel with plans for even 40% AMD - 60% Intel in Q2. Such news would be a godsend to AMD, but the same goes for end-users as we’d probably end up witnessing the mother of all price wars, something that end-users can never get enough of.

More here.