AMD Is Now a “Data Center First” Company, and PC Gamers Have Every Reason

If you’re a PC gamer, like I am, it’s been a rough time, and things aren’t looking much better. RAM and storage prices are ridiculous, GPUs are still expensive as hell, and now we’re watching the very companies that PC gamers helped make successful turn their attention to AI and data centers. Nvidia has already made it pretty clear where its priorities are, and it certainly isn’t the average PC gamer looking to upgrade their graphics card.

But at least we still have AMD, right? Well, about that.

AMD CEO Lisa Su recently dropped a bombshell during an interview with Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, stating that AMD is now a “data center first” company. Yep, the same AMD that spent years telling us how its Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs would push PC gaming forward.

“We are a data center first company, that is our profile and you know, people need more computing to power all these applications.”

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. During the third quarter of 2026, AMD reported a record $13.4 billion in revenue, with its data center business bringing in $8.5 billion, or roughly 64% of that total. Meanwhile, its gaming division brought in just $773 million, a 40% drop compared to the same period last year.

When you see numbers like that, it’s pretty obvious why AMD is chasing the data center market. There’s simply too much money involved. But at the same time, when you keep raising the prices of processors and graphics cards, what do you expect? Consumers can’t afford the same hardware they used to, and eventually, they’re going to stop buying it. You can’t keep raising prices and expect everyone to just go along with it.

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Still, I can’t help but think back to those years when Lisa Su would proudly walk onto a stage and talk about AMD’s latest advancements. How its new processors would push gaming performance even further, how Radeon was going to compete with Nvidia, and how content creators could get their work done faster than ever. Remember those presentations? I certainly do. There was a time when it felt like AMD was genuinely excited about what it was bringing to PC gamers.

The AI push has seemingly caused everyone to lose their minds, with companies throwing ridiculous amounts of money into the almighty cloud and data centers. And here we are, watching PC hardware get more expensive while the companies making it are busy figuring out how much more money they can squeeze out of AI.

Do you know how much it pains me to see a 2TB SSD that used to cost less than $300, now being more than $700? Or a GPU that was less than $500, now costing over $800? That’s the effect that AI and data centers have had on the consumer space.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, AMD calling itself a data center-first company doesn’t mean Ryzen and Radeon are suddenly going away. I’m not saying that. But when the data center business is bringing in billions more than gaming, you have to wonder how long it’ll be before consumer hardware starts getting less attention.

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And that bothers me. I’ve been building PCs for decades, and I’ve watched AMD go from the company fighting to stay relevant against Intel and Nvidia to becoming a serious competitor again. Ryzen was a huge part of that comeback, and Radeon has continued giving PC gamers another option, even if Nvidia still dominates the graphics card market.

I understand that AMD is a business and that businesses exist to make money. Nobody is expecting Lisa Su to turn down billions of dollars just to make PC gamers happy. But there’s something frustrating about seeing companies that built their reputations on consumer hardware increasingly treating that same market like it’s no longer the main attraction.

PC gaming isn’t going anywhere, but the cost of being a PC gamer keeps climbing. And now, with AMD openly calling itself a data center-first company, I have to wonder what happens to its gaming ambitions. What about AMD’s rumored neural rendering technology that’s supposed to compete with Nvidia’s DLSS 5? Will AMD continue investing in those advancements, or will gaming eventually take a back seat to whatever AI project is bringing in the most money?

I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that. Because the last thing PC gaming needs right now is AMD deciding that gaming isn’t worth the effort anymore. Nvidia has already given PC gamers enough reasons to be frustrated. We don’t need AMD following down the same road.

And here I am, having recently picked up an AMD Radeon RX 9070 for my living room small form factor PC, and now I’m debating whether I should have gone with an RTX 5070 instead. Which makes absolutely no sense when you consider that the RX 9070 has 16GB of VRAM compared to the RTX 5070’s 12GB. But if I’m going to spend my money supporting one of two companies that seemingly couldn’t care less about me as a PC gamer, maybe I should just go with the one that’s been winning the GPU battle for years.

And the fact that I’m even thinking about that after buying an AMD graphics card says a lot about where we are right now.

PC gaming AMD Radeon Lisa Su