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.

AMD's share of the revenue dropped from 13.9 per cent in the year-ago quarter to 12.1 per cent in Q3 2008. It experienced a tenth-of-a-percentage-point gain sequentially, though.

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.