What happened
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 3.52%), a stock very much in the public eye due to its association with artificial intelligence (AI) functionalities, saw a nice little jump in price on Thursday. It rose by nearly 4% on the back of an announcement about two new products, plus a significant price target increase by an analyst. With this performance, it well exceeded that of the benchmark S&P 500 index, which slid by 0.3% on the day.
So what
That morning, AMD formally heralded the arrival of a pair of workstation graphics cards, the Radeon PRO W7500 and W7600. These latest models in the storied Radeon family hold 8 gigabytes of GDDR6 memory and are targeted for applications that can be graphics-intensive, such as computer-aided design (CAD).
In its press release regarding the two new cards, AMD quoted its general manager of the graphics business unit as saying, "Our goal is to offer more choice for professional users, and these graphics cards do exactly that -- built to address the largest market segment focusing on mainstream workloads."
AMD did not provide any estimates for how many W7500s and W7600s it might sell.
Now what
Separately, an analyst tracking AMD stock has gotten more bullish on the company's prospects -- and workstation graphics cards weren't the reason why. Benchmark's Cody Acree enacted a mighty lift to his price target on the shares, to $145 per share from $108. He reaffirmed his buy recommendation on the stock, too.
In doing so, he wrote in a research note, "We believe AMD is among the best-positioned companies to benefit from the tech sector's broad macroeconomic adoption of artificial intelligence."
