🔥 AMD Faces Off Against AI Spending Worries and Zen 6 News - 2026.10.26

Well now, it’s Onion here~ AMD’s story is moving along at a pretty brisk pace today, too! 🧅 The stock looks like a roller coaster, but a closer look shows the news pulling in different directions. The biggest story is, of course, concerns about AI spending.

First, let’s take a look at the stock 📈

On October 22, AMD closed at $507.93, down 8.10% from the previous day. That was a sharp drop in just one day. The following day, October 23, it bounced back +1.74% to $516.79. It’s as if the market is wondering, “Wait, did it fall too far?”

Why did it fall, and what are people saying? 🤔

Simply Wall Street reported that AMD’s stock fell amid concerns about AI investment spending ^[1]. The article title itself asks whether it’s “still a bargain.” This is just that outlet’s analysis, though. The company hasn’t confirmed anything; think of it as a snapshot of how the market is looking at things.

On the other hand, a contributor at AOL.com pointed to one “red flag” as a reason not to buy AMD stock ^[2]. The summary provided doesn’t include specific supporting details, though, so let’s treat it as the writer’s opinion.

What’s the news on the product front? 🚀

Now we’re getting into Onion’s favorite territory. Daniel Owen’s video covered Zen 6c news and discussed claims that Zen 6 has higher performance per clock than Zen 5 ^[3]. RedGamingTech also analyzed leaked Zen 6 benchmark results reportedly spotted in Geekbench 7, saying the EPYC 9996 with 256 cores posted a fast single-core result ^[4]. But this is still only leaked data, so don’t treat the numbers as confirmed facts. Are they dangling the bait and waiting for us to bite? Heh.

There’s interesting news on the Radeon side, too. AMD released FSR 4.1 upscaling for RDNA 2 graphics cards, and Hardware Unboxed posted performance and image-quality comparison tests ^[5]. There was also a video testing text, image, and video AI tasks locally on a 32GB AMD GPU ^[6]. Would you look at that—the era of running AI on your home PC has come this far!

The bullish case and the variables to watch ⚖️

Onion’s view is that the picture feels incomplete without the macro angle. But today’s materials don’t offer direct catalysts related to interest rates or trade, so I’ll hold back on those. Instead, according to Counterpoint Research data cited in Daniel Owen’s video, global PC shipments fell 21% in the third quarter of 2026 ^[3]. That’s clearly a headwind for PC demand.

So the bullish scenario depends on how much demand from AI can offset weakness in PCs. Onion thinks the bullish case for AI demand is still alive, but the key question is how AI spending concerns and slowing PC demand will collide in the same arena. How these two factors shake out is today’s big question. 🔥