AMD Q3 Earnings Preview: Data Center Growth Tested After 11% Drop on Intel's PC Warning

AMD reports third-quarter 2026 results after the close on Tuesday, November 3, with the consensus calling for $1.95 in EPS and about $13.09 billion of revenue, according to SentiSense earnings data. AMD's own guidance was about $13 billion, plus or minus $300 million, with an adjusted gross margin near 56%.

The shares head into the print on the back foot. AMD fell 10.88% to $504.80 on Friday after rival INTC gave a weak PC outlook, with Intel saying it expects PC segment sales to decline more than 20% sequentially this quarter. That puts AMD's Ryzen client business, not just its AI accelerators, in focus, since Intel expects PC demand to stay weak into 2027 because of memory costs.

The bull case rests on the data center. In the second quarter, data center revenue rose 107% to $6.7 billion, about 58% of total revenue of $11.5 billion, and Instinct AI accelerator sales more than doubled. Hudson Labs noted that AI accelerators carry margins below the corporate average, so a mix shift toward AI can grow revenue faster than gross margin.

The questions for the call: whether data center growth continues at that pace, how much the PC slowdown Intel flagged reaches AMD's client segment, and what fourth-quarter guidance implies for both. Analysts remain constructive, with a mean price target of $640.21 across 50 analysts in SentiSense data, so the reaction will hinge on guidance as much as on the quarter itself.