AMD data center revenue surpasses Intel's for the first time, driven by strong Epyc CPU sales

[DragonSlayer101]

Recap: AMD reported Q3 2024 revenues of $6.819 billion, an 18 percent increase from $5.8 billion in the same period last year. Gross profit reached $3.4 billion, up 24 percent year-over-year (YoY), while net income stood at $771 million, marking a 151 percent increase over Q3 2023.

The strong results were driven by record data center revenues of $3.549 billion, up 122 percent YoY and 25 percent sequentially, fueled mainly by high demand for EPYC CPUs. Revenue from the client segment was $1.9 billion, a 29 percent YoY and 26 percent sequential increase, largely due to robust sales of AMD's new Zen 5 desktop processors.

Revenue from the gaming segment, which includes discrete Radeon GPUs and semi-custom SoC products, was $462 million, down 69 percent from Q3 2023 and 29 percent from Q2 2024, primarily due to a decline in semi-custom revenue. AMD does not disclose GPU revenues separately.

Embedded segment revenue was $927 million, down 25 percent YoY but up 8 percent sequentially. This segment includes the new EPYC Embedded 8004 series processors for high-performance workloads and the budget-friendly Alveo UL3422 accelerator card for ultra-low latency electronic trading applications.

AMD overtook Intel for the first time in data center revenue in 3Q24. But, their DC revenue scale is small that they are less than NVIDIA's networking (non compute) revenue alone. pic.twitter.com/3LEGTkDF8T

– Sravan Kundojjala (@SKundojjala) November 3, 2024

AMD's third-quarter financials are mostly positive, but the standout metric is its record data center revenue, which surpassed Intel's data center and AI group's earnings for the first time. Just last week, Chipzilla reported DCAI revenues of $3.3 billion, down from nearly $6 billion in Q1 2022.

Launched last month, AMD's Epyc 9005 "Turin" processors feature new Zen 5 and 5c core architectures. The lineup is led by the EPYC 9965, which features 192 Zen 5c cores, 384 threads, a base clock of 2.5GHz, and a boost clock of up to 3.7GHz. It offers 384MB of L3 cache and has a default TDP of 500W. It retails for $14,813.

AMD's latest EPYC processors compete in the data center market with Intel's Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest lineups. Launched earlier this year, Intel's new Xeon 6 6900 "Granite Rapids" series is led by the Xeon 6980P, featuring 128 high-performance cores and 256 threads. It has a base clock of 2.0 GHz, a boost clock of 3.9 GHz, 504 MB of L3 cache, and a default TDP of 500W, with a price tag of $17,800.

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AMD data center revenue surpasses Intel's for the first time, driven by strong Epyc CPU sales

 

[brucek]

"largely due to robust sales of AMD's new Zen 5 desktop processors."

Interesting - this does not fit the narrative I'd been hearing about the initial (non X3D) Zen 5 CPUs offering little over Zen 4 to Windows users, and not selling well, leading to required discounts (story on this just yesterday I believe.)

 

[EEatGDL]

Interesting - this does not fit the narrative I'd been hearing about the initial (non X3D) Zen 5 CPUs offering little over Zen 4 to Windows users, and not selling well, leading to required discounts (story on this just yesterday I believe.)

"Data center" all over the place (title, content, EPYC lineup), yet you're thinking about personal computer market.

 

[brucek]

"Data center" all over the place (title, content, EPYC lineup), yet you're thinking about personal computer market.

"Data center revenues of $3.549 billion"
vs
"client segment was $1.9 billion, a 29 percent YoY and 26 percent sequential increase, largely due to robust sales of AMD's new Zen 5 desktop processors"

The sentence I quoted and am asking about was specific to desktop processors.

 

[Achaios]

I remember ppl frantically buying AMD stock when L. Su took over. I did not share their enthusiasm. I admit I thought AMD was dead in the water, foundered and finished.

Who would have thought it would come to this.

The year was ca 2014, 4790K had just been released on dithyrambic reviews by pretty much anyone who owned a computer and Intel seemed unsinkable.

 

[maxxcool7421]

"largely due to robust sales of AMD's new Zen 5 desktop processors."

Interesting - this does not fit the narrative I'd been hearing about the initial (non X3D) Zen 5 CPUs offering little over Zen 4 to Windows users, and not selling well, leading to required discounts (story on this just yesterday I believe.)

did you read that part where it says DATA CENTER ?

 

[Godel]

Dithyrambic?

OK, new word learned, but I'm not expecting to use it much in general conversation.

 

[brucek]

Will you guys please read the entire article. The strong data center results were no surprise to me. However the article also included a separate, specific statement about desktop CPUs, which is the one I quoted.

Here are the data center results:

The strong results were driven by record data center revenues of $3.549 billion, up 122 percent YoY and 25 percent sequentially, fueled mainly by high demand for EPYC CPUs.

And here's the client segment results, whose success was specifically attributed to "Zen 5 desktop processors":

Revenue from the client segment was $1.9 billion, a 29 percent YoY and 26 percent sequential increase, largely due to robust sales of AMD's new Zen 5 desktop processors.

Also, a separate and general tip for those of you who may not be aware, that at TechSpot and most other publications, the headline is written by a different person than the author. You will miss a lot of information if you let a few words in a headline color your entire analysis of the full article. TechSpot is usually reasonable but there are plenty of places who go for maximum clickbait in the headline, which makes an already insurmountable challenge of compressing hundreds of words into a few, even more lossy.

Another general tip: public companies file one quarterly earnings report covering their entire business. As explained in the first sentence, and despite the headline, this article is giving us the total Q3 results, along with the analysis that data center was the primary growth driver.

 

[brucek]

did you read that part where it says DATA CENTER ?

Sorry, but if you're going to be snarky, I have to ask if you read the part where it says DESKTOP PROCESSORS. I don't really want to get into a flame war about it, just trying to get people to notice the desktop results were reported too, and at least to me were the more interesting / less expected result.

 

[Achaios]

Dithyrambic?

OK, new word learned, but I'm not expecting to use it much in general conversation.

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/dithyrambic_adj?tl=true

 

[airbornex]

Interesting that AMD’s growth is coming mainly from data centers, while gaming revenue has dipped. AMD like everybody else is pivoting to meet the enterprise and AI demands where the real money is now.