It was good news for chip maker Intel (INTC) today, and boy, does it feel good to say that again. The newest reports suggest that the company’s Arrow Lake processors are worth buying, and that news sent INTC stock up nearly 4% in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
The word from Tom’s Hardware is that the Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 285K is proving a powerhouse in the single-core department. While the example tested was a “pre-release engineering sample,” according to PassMark software, it still produced solid results.
The Tom’s Hardware report stated that the Arrow Lake processor was superior to similar microchips from Apple (AAPL) and AMD (AMD). There is a bit of a downside that comes with this, however, as the multi-core variants of Intel’s processors do not hold up as well against those of other brands.
Some Downside Risks
The Arrow Lake processors come with some downside risks. Specifically, they are not as good as the Ultra 9 285K’s results were, and were a bit slower than the Core i9-14900K for gaming. Given how many personal computers (PCs) are purchased for gaming, the new processor may not be the help Intel likely hoped it would be.
And while Intel is having some troubles keeping up with its competitors, new reports suggest a lot of that is caused by the fact that the company has put around $30 billion into semiconductor plant manufacturing, and that has left many of its other operations on the back foot. Should this tactic fail to work, Intel may be on a path to permanent decline.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 26 Holds and seven Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 34.59% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $25.38 per share implies 9.14% upside potential.
