Intel and AMD continued their tit-for-tat exchange of market share during Q3, with the chip giant making a small gain at the expense of its arch-rival.

According to market watcher iSuppli, Intel took 80.4 per cent of world "general-purpose" processor sales, up a third of a percentage point on the previous quarter and 1.7 points up on Q3 2007.

Other processor players - x86 chip makers, Risc purveyors and so on - together accounted for 7.5 per cent of sales, down from 7.9 per cent in the previous quarter.

Intel's growth arose from its strong notebook product portfolio - Centrino 2 was launched during Q3 - but increase amounting to a mere fraction of one percentage point is nothing for it to shout about.

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