Nvidia vs AMD
Two chip designers, neither of which owns the plants that make their products. They spent years fighting over the graphics card market before demand tied to artificial intelligence redealt the hand.
Over the period both series share, Nvidia comes out ahead at +36.5% a year.
| Asset | Total return | Annualised | Volatility | Largest drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | ×5,611 | +36.5% a year | 60.8% | −86.6% (October 2002) |
| AMD | ×41.6 | +14.4% a year | 67.1% | −96.1% (September 2015) |
Figures calculated on 26/10/2026 from monthly closing prices. Past performance is no guide to future performance.
Two designers without factories
Nvidia and AMD design their processors and hand manufacturing to third-party foundries. That fabless model leaves them dependent on available production capacity, and exposes both companies to the same bottlenecks.
Their territories overlap without coinciding. AMD also faces Intel in desktop and server processors, a market Nvidia historically stayed out of. Nvidia, for its part, has built a software ecosystem around its chips that weighs heavily in what developers choose.
What a share price curve shows
The comparison tracks the share prices of two companies, not their market shares or their earnings. A share can rise because the business succeeds, but also because the market revises what it will pay for those earnings — and the two effects blend together.
Both are among the most volatile names in their index: falls of more than half have happened several times, including through periods when the company kept growing.
Frequently asked questions
Are dividends included?
The series used is adjusted for dividends and splits, which matches a shareholder who reinvested everything.
Why does a curve jump without a crash?
A share split divides the price without changing the value held. Adjusted series correct for that, precisely so it does not look like a move in the price.