Intel and AMD are spicing up the server market with ever-faster processors, but server vendors have suffered the largest revenue decline seen this decade, Gartner has found.

Worldwide, server revenue declined 24 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the previous year's first quarter, and server shipments dropped an almost identical 24.2 percent. These were the largest year-over-year declines the server industry has experienced in recent memory, Gartner said.

Analyst firm IDC came to a similar conclusion last week when it said worldwide quarterly server revenue dropped 24.5 percent   year-over-year to $9.9 billion -- the lowest revenue total seen since IDC began tracking the quarterly server market 12 years ago.

In the United States, shipments dropped about 27 percent in the first quarter, while revenue declined 21.2 percent. The biggest declines geographically occurred in Eastern Europe, where shipments fell 41.3 percent and revenue fell 47.7 percent.