Intel Corporation (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) cleared multi-month resistance over the past week. Meanwhile, Nvidia (NVDA) gained just 2.12%, and Broadcom (AVGO) fell, pointing to rotation inside the AI chip trade.
Intel closed Wednesday at $106.24 and AMD at $521.10. Both eased in Thursday pre-market trading, and both still sit below their 2026 highs.
Server CPU Shortage Hands Intel and AMD Pricing Power
The rally rests on a shift in how AI workloads consume compute. Training leaned on GPUs. However, agentic systems need CPUs to coordinate tasks and move data.
Analysts now model the GPU-to-CPU ratio falling from roughly eight to one toward parity. AMD projects a $120 billion server CPU market by 2030, against a base near $30 billion.
Supply confirms the demand. Intel backlogs run beyond six months, and EPYC processors are effectively sold out for 2026. Server CPU prices have climbed 10% to 35% per quarter.
Both companies also drew their own catalysts. DigiTimes reported Intel plans a 10% CPU price increase in October. Northland upgraded the stock to Outperform with a $120 target. AMD, meanwhile, pitched a $3 trillion addressable market at the Citi Global Technology Conference, and Piper Sandler initiated coverage at Overweight.
Intel Breaks Its Downtrend and Tests $103.49
Intel remained sideways in August, just under the $95 price of its $20 billion share offering. The stock broke its descending resistance trendline on September 4.
Volume and news arrived together. Intel gained 4.5% that Friday, then 9% on September 8. A filing showing Nvidia’s Intel stake is now worth $30 billion drove the second move.
Price currently sits inside the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement at $103.49. The swing high from July 15 at $109.30 marks the next resistance.
The daily Relative Strength Index (RSI) turned first. It broke its own downtrend in early August, roughly a month before the price did. That line then held as support on August 24.
RSI now reads near 63 and rising. Notably, readings above 70 capped nothing during Intel’s April advance, when RSI peaked near 87.
AMD Clears Its Triangle and Flips $514.39 to Support
AMD traded inside a symmetrical triangle from mid-June until September 9. The stock closed at $521.10 that day and broke the upper boundary. The move cleared the previous swing high at $514.39, which should now act as support.
The $540 to $555 band is the next supply zone, sitting below the all-time high of $584.73.
AMD reported second-quarter data center revenue of $6.7 billion, up 107%. Third-quarter revenue is guided to roughly $13 billion. The stock went nowhere while earnings climbed, which compressed its multiple. Forward price-to-earnings now sits near 47, against a trailing figure above 130.
Volume has broken its own May downtrend, although it remains below the peaks set earlier in the year.
The two setups differ. Intel is attempting a reversal and still trades 25% below its 52-week high. AMD is continuing an uptrend from 11% below its high.
Money flow data had already shown institutions preferring AMD to Nvidia. Risks remain, however, with Intel Foundry losing $2.089 billion last quarter and AMD gaming revenue down 31%.
The post 2 Chip Stocks Broke Out This Week. Neither Was Nvidia appeared first on BeInCrypto.
