AMD reports $118m loss, says HD 6000 is coming next week

AMD has posted its latest earnings results, showing revenue of $1.62 billion with a $118 million ($0.17 per share) net loss for the third quarter of 2010 – a stark contrast to its Santa Clara-based rival. Just earlier this week, Intel announced its first $11 billion quarter. AMD's loss comes amid falling average selling prices (ASPs) and weaker-than-expected demand – which the same for much of the PC industry.

Nonetheless, the world's second largest chipmaker said its performance "was highlighted by solid gross margin and a continued focus on profitability." "Our strategy to deliver platforms with superior visual experiences continues to resonate. We look forward to building on this momentum when we begin shipping our first AMD Fusion Accelerated Processor Units later this quarter," said CEO Dirk Meyer.

Revenue for AMD's Computing Solutions segment was flat sequentially and up 13% on-year, while its graphics business revenue fell 11% on-month and rose 33% from last year. The company attributes both the positive and negative fluctuations in GPU sales to notebook shipments and ASP. Processor prices also fell slightly from the previous quarter and increased from the same period in 2009.

Update: AMD has officially confirmed its second-gen DirectX 11 GPUs will debut next week. "We'll be introducing our second-generation of DX11 technology into the market with some launch activities actually next week. We'll be shipping all the family members of that product line I'll call it, by the end of this quarter, and total volume think in terms of several hundred thousand, or hundreds of thousands of units."