Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) made the case on Wednesday that CPUs remain a key part of the AI buildout. While much of the AI buildout has focused on GPUs, AMD said agentic AI systems also rely on CPUs for heavy tasks. This includes databases, web services, caches, APIs, and orchestration tools. The semiconductor company argued that rack-level performance matters more than chip-level benchmarks because data centers are limited by power, cooling, and space.
AMD’s data showed its EPYC 9965 processor delivering about 2.37 times the rack-level throughput of rival chipmaker Nvidia’s (NVDA) Vera platform in a modeled 100-kilowatt rack. The upcoming EPYC Venice chip is projected to increase that lead to 3.3 times when compared to Vera. AMD also compared its products to semiconductor rival Intel’s (INTC) offerings. The EPYC 9965 delivered roughly 1.6 times the rack-level throughput of Intel’s Xeon 6980P processor.
AMD also highlighted rack density as a major advantage. The company said current EPYC Turin systems can support more than 27,000 CPU cores per rack, while future EPYC Venice systems could exceed 36,000 cores. For comparison, Nvidia Vera-based racks offer roughly 22,500 cores. AMD said these gains come on standard x86 systems that businesses can deploy today, allowing firms to expand AI infrastructure without moving to a new software platform.
AMD Stock Movement Today
AMD stock was down 3.92% on Wednesday, but was still up 113.28% year-to-date. The stock has also climbed 292.53% over the past 12 months. Traders will note that AMD has been caught in a recent tech stock selloff. This has the shares down 9.27% over the past five days of trading.
AMD stock trading activity today was muted. This saw some 11 million shares change hands, compared to a three-month average daily trading volume of about 40 million shares.
Is AMD Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for AMD is Strong Buy, based on 27 Buy and eight Hold ratings over the past three months. With that comes an average AMD stock price target of $483.70, representing a potential 4.92% upside for the shares.
