AMD vs Intel Stock: How the Two Chipmakers Compare

For decades, choosing between the two big American makers of PC processors was a question about which chip went inside your computer. It has become a question about two very different companies, and over the past year the stock market has rewarded both of them at the same time.

The two tickers, AMD and INTC, look like a matched pair: both companies design processors, both sell into the same servers and laptops, and both share prices climbed hard. Compare the charts alone and they look like two versions of the same bet.

They are two different bets, and the difference starts with who owns the factories. It changes how each company earns money, what its reported profit means, and which risks you take on when you buy the stock.

It matters even more once both are on the same trading screen. When you can hold either one, or both at once, the question worth answering first is what each share actually represents.

What is the difference between AMD and Intel stock?

AMD and Intel stock are shares in two different kinds of chip company. AMD designs processors and pays other firms to manufacture them. Intel designs processors and also runs its own factories, called a foundry, which currently loses money. In August 2025 the US government took a 9.9% stake in Intel, paid for with grants it had already awarded.

A foundry is a factory business that makes chips, either for its own designs or for other companies. A company with no factories of its own is called fabless. AMD is fabless, and Intel is both a designer and a foundry, which explains most of the differences between the two stocks.

In the quarter ended June 27, 2026, AMD earned $2.0 billion of operating income on $11.5 billion of revenue (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). Intel earned $1.8 billion on $16.1 billion, so AMD made more operating income on about 72% of Intel's revenue (source: Intel Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). Intel also reported a net loss of $11.0 billion in a quarter when its business made an operating profit, because of a charge tied to shares it owes the US government.

What you own when you buy Intel stock

Intel describes itself as two companies inside one. Its quarterly filing says its product businesses and its foundry "are meant to reflect separate fabless semiconductor and foundry companies, respectively." The product side designs and sells the processors. The foundry side makes them, and it charges the product side for the work.

Most of the foundry's revenue is money the product side pays it, so it disappears when Intel adds the businesses together (source: Intel Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). What matters for a shareholder is the loss. Intel's products earned $4.8 billion in the quarter, and the factories that make them lost $2.1 billion.

That loss is the price of Intel's plan. The company is spending to build manufacturing it hopes will eventually serve outside customers too. Intel released its first products made on Intel 18A at the start of 2026, and during the second quarter it committed to finishing development of Intel 14A. Intel 18A and 14A are names for its manufacturing processes, each a step toward smaller and more efficient transistors.

A share of Intel also carries stakes in other companies. At the end of 2025 Intel owned 80% of Mobileye, a maker of driver-assistance chips. It also owned 68% of IMS, which builds equipment for making chip masks (source: Intel Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). It also kept a stake in Altera, a maker of programmable chips, after selling 51% to an affiliate of Silver Lake Partners in September 2025: 49% at the sale, and 48% by the end of the year (source: Intel Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).

What you own when you buy AMD stock

AMD is a simpler thing to own. It designs processors, graphics chips and accelerators, and it reports one company in three segments: Data Center, Client and Gaming, and Embedded. In the quarter ended June 27, 2026, Data Center brought in $6.7 billion of the $11.5 billion total, more than half of AMD's revenue (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026).

AMD owns no chip factories, and its annual report says outside foundries make the wafers for all of its products. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) makes every processor and graphics chip wafer at 7 nanometers or smaller, and GlobalFoundries is the main supplier for those made on older, larger processes (source: AMD Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Without factories to fill, AMD skips the cost of building them. The trade-off is that its supply depends on another company, which makes AMD's reliance on TSMC a supply risk outside AMD's own control.

The two models show up in each company's gross margin, the share of revenue left after the direct cost of making what it sells. Say each company sold $100 of chips in the quarter ended June 27, 2026. AMD would have kept about $54 of it as gross profit and Intel about $40, by each company's quarterly filing. Intel's figure is what is left after running its own factories. AMD's is what is left after paying outside foundries to make its chips.

The two companies also differ in how much they depend on a few buyers. AMD's annual report says no single customer made up 10% or more of its revenue in 2025 or 2024. Intel's annual report shows its three largest customers took 19%, 12% and 12% of its 2025 revenue, 43% between them (source: Intel Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).

That gap matters when one large buyer changes its plans. A company selling 19% of its output to one customer feels that customer's decisions directly. AMD's revenue is spread more widely, although its largest AI agreements are with a handful of buyers.

The US government's stake in Intel

The US government owns part of Intel under an agreement signed in August 2025. Intel agreed to issue it 433.3 million shares at $20.47 each, which Intel's announcement described as "equivalent to a 9.9 percent stake in the company" (source: Intel press release, August 22, 2025).

The same announcement says the stake was paid for with $5.7 billion of CHIPS and Science Act grants that Intel had been awarded but not yet received. Another $3.2 billion came from awards under a CHIPS Act defense program called Secure Enclave (source: Intel press release, August 22, 2025).

The government's stake carries almost no control. The announcement calls it "a passive ownership, with no Board representation or other governance or information rights." It also says the government "agrees to vote with the Company's Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions." In practice, the government votes as Intel's board recommends on almost every question.

Two further terms matter to a shareholder. Some of the shares went into escrow, released to the government as the Secure Enclave money arrives. If that money has not all arrived by the time Intel stops being eligible for it, half of the remaining escrowed shares go to the government anyway and the other half are canceled. And the government received warrants, the right to buy more shares later at a fixed price. They come with a condition. The filing says the warrants "will be exercisable only if, and from the date on which, the Company ceases to directly or indirectly own at least 51% of its foundry business," and each warrant buys one share at $20.00. They expire five years after closing (source: Intel Form 8-K, August 22, 2025).

The warrant only matters if Intel sells off control of its factories. Say you hold Intel shares and Intel spins off its foundry. The government could then exercise warrants covering up to 240,516,150 shares with a $20 exercise price. The warrants always settle on a net basis, so the government receives only the value above $20, and Intel chooses whether to pay it in cash or in new shares, with shares the default if it does not choose in time (source: Intel Form 8-K, August 22, 2025). At Intel's September 24, 2026 close of $127.39, settling in shares would have meant about 203 million new shares. If it pays in shares, each of yours would stand for a smaller part of the company. That makes the warrant a cost attached to breaking the company up.

Share dilution at Intel and AMD

Intel's share count grew far faster than AMD's over the past year. By Stock Analysis's count, read September 25, 2026, Intel had 13.28% more shares outstanding than a year earlier (source: Stock Analysis, Intel statistics). AMD's count, read the same day, was up 1.07% (source: Stock Analysis, AMD statistics).

The US government was not Intel's only new owner. Intel's annual report shows that SoftBank bought 87 million shares at $23.00 in September 2025, and that Nvidia bought 215 million shares at $23.28, a purchase completed in December 2025. Each of those deals added new shares to the count.

Say you owned 1,000 Intel shares a year ago. Your 1,000 shares still exist, but each now stands for about 12% less of the company than it did, because 1 divided by 1.1328 is about 0.883. That shrinking share of the company is called dilution, and it is a real cost even when the share price rises.

AMD's count could still grow, though. Its quarterly filing says warrants issued to OpenAI and Meta each let the holder buy up to 160 million AMD shares at $0.01. Together that is up to 320 million shares, about a fifth of the roughly 1.63 billion shares the same filing's cover reported outstanding on July 29, 2026. They vest as those companies' purchases of AMD's Instinct AI accelerators reach set milestones and AMD's stock reaches set prices, and none had vested by June 27, 2026. If all 320 million vested and were exercised, each existing AMD share would stand for about 16% less of the company, because 1 divided by 1.196 is about 0.836.

Why does Intel report a loss?

Intel reports a loss because of the escrowed shares it still owes the US government, while its operations as a whole made money. In the quarter ended June 27, 2026, Intel made an operating profit of $1.8 billion. It still booked a net loss of $11.0 billion, after a single non-operating charge of about $12.5 billion.

Intel's own filing explains the charge. It says Intel "recognized a $12.5 billion loss related to the net change in the fair value of shares of our common stock released from escrow during the quarter and remaining in escrow at the end of Q2 2026, driven by an increase in our stock price." Fair value is simply the market value of something on a given day.

Intel still owes the government shares under the 2025 agreement, and those shares are counted as a liability, an amount owed, measured at their market value. When Intel's share price rises, the shares Intel owes become worth more, so the liability grows, and the increase is recorded as a loss. The filing puts that liability at $15.6 billion on June 27, 2026, up from $2.7 billion at the end of 2025.

Say you are reading Intel's results for the first time. The headline says Intel lost $11.0 billion. The operating line says the business made $1.8 billion. Both are true, and the loss grows larger the better Intel's stock does, which is the opposite of how a loss usually works. Intel closed at $127.39 on September 24, 2026, far above the roughly $20 price attached to the government's shares (source: Stock Analysis, Intel price history).

That is why Intel has no trailing P/E ratio. A P/E ratio divides the share price by the last year of earnings per share, and it has no meaning when earnings are negative. For comparing the two companies, operating income and the forward P/E tell you more about Intel's business than its headline profit.

AMD vs Intel data center growth

Both companies grew their data-center business quickly over the year to June 2026, but in different ways. AMD's Data Center segment more than doubled, while Intel's data center and AI business (DCAI) grew 59%, mostly because it sold a richer mix of higher-priced server processors (source: Intel Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). The difference tells you what each company's growth depends on.

Intel is the bigger company by total revenue. Even so, going by each company's quarterly filing, AMD's Data Center segment was the larger of the two in that quarter, at $6.7 billion (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). Intel's DCAI brought in $6.3 billion (source: Intel Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). The two segments count different products, though. AMD's includes its AI accelerators, the chips behind its large customer agreements, while Intel's filing attributes its segment's growth mainly to server revenue, so the comparison describes the businesses and not two identical product lines. In server processors alone the two compete head to head, and AMD's side of that contest is its EPYC server business.

Intel's growth came mostly from a higher average selling price (ASP), the average revenue for each processor sold. Its quarterly filing puts the rise in server ASP at 48%, against a 9% rise in the number of server processors sold. Most of that ASP increase came from customers buying a higher mix of premium processors, and price increases played a smaller part.

Intel also could not make enough server processors to meet demand in the quarter, because of limits in its own factories. It expects shortages of parts across the industry to last into 2027. A shortage caps how much a company can sell until new capacity arrives, and it can support prices while it lasts.

AMD and Intel valuation and balance sheets compared

Valuation and debt show what the market already expects from each company, and how much room each has if those expectations turn out wrong. At the September 24, 2026 close, Intel was the more expensive stock on expected earnings, while AMD had the stronger balance sheet, holding more cash than debt.

A forward P/E divides the share price by the earnings analysts expect over the coming year. By that measure, buyers were paying 75.7 times Intel's expected earnings at the September 24, 2026 close (source: Stock Analysis, Intel statistics). The same measure put AMD at 56.9 (source: Stock Analysis, AMD statistics). A higher forward P/E means buyers are paying more today for each dollar of profit they expect later. Price to sales divides a company's market value by its last year of revenue, so it still works when earnings are negative. On that measure AMD was the pricier stock, at 24.9 times sales against Intel's 11.7.

The balance sheets show an even wider gap. On June 27, 2026, AMD held about $9.9 billion more in cash and short-term investments than it owed, by its own quarterly filing. Intel owed about $20.8 billion more than it held. Intel's figure is net debt, the amount a company owes beyond the cash it holds. It leaves a company less room to keep funding its plans if revenue slows. Intel was also spending far more on factories and equipment, about $7.6 billion in the first half of 2026 (source: Intel Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). AMD's own quarterly filing shows $1.2 billion for the same six months.

Both companies' annual reports give China sales by where the customer is billed, so the two shares are broadly comparable. AMD's figure includes Hong Kong, and Intel's filing does not say how it counts Hong Kong. Each sells between a fifth and a quarter of its revenue to customers billed in China, which leaves both exposed to US export rules on chips sold to China.

How to choose between AMD and Intel stock

Which stock is better depends on which outcome you expect, because each is a bet on something different. AMD is mainly a bet that fast growth continues, and Intel is mainly a bet that a turnaround succeeds. The useful question is which of those you believe is more likely, and what could go wrong with it.

For AMD, that means its data-center sales keep rising at a high rate, its AI agreements turn into deliveries, and TSMC keeps supplying it. At 56.9 times expected earnings at the September 24, 2026 close, the share price depends on profits that have not arrived yet, so a slowdown would matter even if the business stayed profitable.

For Intel, it means its foundry stops losing money, its new manufacturing processes work at scale, and demand for its premium server processors holds once supply catches up. At the September 24, 2026 close, buyers were paying 75.7 times expected earnings for a company with net debt, whose share count had grown 13% in a year.

Before you pick one, check four things against your own view. First, whether you believe AI spending lifts accelerators more than server processors, since that favors AMD's mix. Second, whether you believe Intel's factories will win outside customers, which is the core of Intel's plan. Third, how much debt and dilution you are willing to carry. Fourth, whether you want exposure to a chip company alone or to a bundle that also includes Mobileye and a stake of just under half in Altera.

Some traders prefer not to choose at all and hold both, one bought and the other sold short. That kind of position is called a pair trade, and it is one way of hedging a chip-heavy position: it bets on the gap between the two companies rather than on the chip sector as a whole. On BloFin both legs can be held as perpetuals, the AMDUSDT Perpetual and the INTCUSDT Perpetual, and each leg pays its own trading fee, listed on the BloFin fee schedule.

Trading AMD and Intel on BloFin

BloFin lists a perpetual contract on each company. As of September 25, 2026, the AMDUSDT Perpetual offers up to 20x leverage and the INTCUSDT Perpetual up to 25x, and each contract represents 0.01 of a share, settled in USDT. A perpetual follows the price of the underlying stock through an index and conveys no ownership of the shares.

Say you want $2,000 of exposure to each stock. At the maximum leverage, the AMD position needs $100 of margin and the Intel position needs $80, because Intel's contract allows 25x against AMD's 20x. Higher leverage means a smaller move against you uses up that margin, so when setting leverage on the AMD contract, treat the maximum as a ceiling and not a setting to aim for.

In the second quarter of 2026 the two companies reported close together, which matters if you hold both. Intel announced its second-quarter results on July 23, 2026 (source: Intel Form 8-K, July 23, 2026). AMD announced its results on August 4, 2026, twelve days later (source: AMD second-quarter 2026 results). If you hold both, that puts two results releases inside two weeks, and results are among the main things that move AMD stock.

AMD's second-quarter results came out after the US market closed. Outside regular US weekday trading hours, and on weekends and market holidays, BloFin may limit stock futures to reduce-only orders, which let you close a position but not open one (source: BloFin stock futures trading update, April 21, 2026). So the price can move on a results release before you can open anything new, which is the overnight and weekend gap risk a leveraged position carries.

Holding a perpetual also costs or pays funding every eight hours, a payment between the long and short sides. When the AMD perpetual's funding rate is positive, longs pay shorts, and when it is negative, shorts pay longs.

If you would rather follow a trader with a track record, copy trading mirrors another account's positions in yours. As of September 25, 2026, BloFin offers copy trading on the INTCUSDT Perpetual but not on the AMDUSDT Perpetual, so a copied position can hold only the Intel side of the pair.

Looking to trade AMD or Intel? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the AMDUSDT Perpetual page or INTCUSDT Perpetual page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Intel or AMD the better stock to buy?

Neither is better in general, because each depends on a different outcome, and the price you pay for each has moved quickly. In June 2026 a Motley Fool comparison of the two put Intel's forward P/E above 120 and AMD's near 73 (source: The Motley Fool, June 19, 2026). By the September 24, 2026 close, Stock Analysis put them at 75.7 and 56.9, although the two figures come from different sites, which may use different earnings estimates. Decide which outcome you believe in, then check what you are paying for it.

Does Intel pay a dividend?

Intel paid no dividend in 2025, and its annual report lists the lack of dividend payments as one reason its financing cash flow rose that year. AMD does not pay one either, and its own annual report says it does not expect to pay dividends in the near future. So neither stock is an income holding, and any return comes from the share price.

Does Nvidia own Intel stock?

Yes. Intel's annual report records that Nvidia paid $5.0 billion for new Intel shares, in a deal agreed on September 15, 2025 and completed on December 26, 2025. The two companies are also developing products together that combine Intel's x86 processors, the chip design standard behind most PCs and servers, with Nvidia's AI chips. So Nvidia, one of AMD's main rivals in AI accelerators, is also an Intel shareholder.

Which company has more revenue, AMD or Intel?

Intel does, although the gap narrowed in 2025. Intel reported $52.9 billion of revenue for 2025, against $53.1 billion in 2024 (source: Intel Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). AMD's rose to $34.6 billion from $25.8 billion (source: AMD Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). That closed the gap between the two from about $27.3 billion to about $18.2 billion in a single year, because AMD grew by about a third while Intel's sales held roughly flat.

Will AMD reach $1,000 per share?

At $1,000 a share, AMD's roughly 1.63 billion shares, the count on its quarterly filing's cover for July 29, 2026, would be worth about $1.6 trillion, against about $1,027.3 billion at the September 24 close, an increase of about 59%. Whether that is reachable depends on how fast earnings grow and what multiple buyers are willing to pay, and no one can know either in advance.

Does Intel make chips for other companies?

Intel is trying to, but for now almost all of its factory work is for itself. Intel's quarterly filing says nearly all of Intel Foundry's work supports Intel's own products. Revenue from outside customers was $293 million in the quarter ended June 27, 2026, up from $22 million a year earlier. The main reason was Altera, which became an outside customer after Intel sold 51% of it in September 2025.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Intel's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, 2026, its Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, its Form 8-K of August 22, 2025 with the press release and warrant agreement filed with it, and its Form 8-K of July 23, 2026; AMD's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, 2026, its Form 10-K for fiscal 2025 and its second-quarter 2026 results release; Stock Analysis valuation and price data at the September 24, 2026 close; The Motley Fool's comparison of June 19, 2026; and BloFin's stock-futures trading notice and AMDUSDT and INTCUSDT contract data, current as of September 25, 2026.

Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold AMD or Intel in any form. Both stocks have more than tripled in a year, and a comparison of forward multiples rests on analysts' earnings estimates that can be revised quickly in either direction. Intel's reported profit also swings with its own share price through the government escrow liability, and further share issuance can dilute either company. A pair trade on the AMDUSDT and INTCUSDT Perpetuals carries two funding charges and two liquidation prices, and a leveraged leg can be liquidated by a move far smaller than the leverage multiple suggests. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.