Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are two of the best-performing tech companies on the US stock market this year. Year-to-date, AMD is up over 78%, while Nvidia is up just over 35%. While AMD is outperforming this year, NVDA stock remains the dominant play in terms of growth for early investors. However, now the race might be a bit closer in Q4 2025.
AMD’s current AI chips have made little impact on the dominance of Nvidia’s Blackwell hardware. However, the MI400 series—which includes the MI450—will be AMD’s first rack-scale, 72-processor AI server offering. That could make it a more serious rival, allowing its stock to boom compared to NVDA shares. Hence, one analyst is pulling in favor of one Santa Clara company over the other.
AMD has gained market share and positioned itself as a strong Nvidia rival in GPUs. Raymond James, 5-star analyst Simon Leopold, recently shared a note to investors about both Nvidia and AMD, suggesting they will both continue to benefit from the growing AI bubble. “We are AI bulls and believe that logic semiconductors will contribute to global secular growth,” he said this past week. “Recent vendor financing and circular investments among model builders, equipment suppliers, and cloud operators have understandably led to increased skepticism and higher scrutiny around ROI by investors.”
The analyst went on to add that current conditions are supporting strong gains for both stocks. “Power constraints and the overall AI cycle are the key risks, and we expect shares to experience at least one outsized drawdown every year or two.” While praising both Nvidia and AMD, Leopold did indicate which stock he feels has the best chances to lead the way into Q4 2025 and the beginning of 2026: AMD.
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Indeed, the Raymond James analyst emphasizes AMD’s stream of recent contract wins and remains upbeat about the company’s ability to capture a meaningful slice of the growing AI market. “Investor skepticism lingers, but shares have attracted a broader audience than in the past and have delivered outstanding performance YTD… Fundamentals need to catch up, and we believe they will. The newest wins with OpenAI and HUMAIN for ~1 GW could be worth $15B in 2026. These grow to over 2 GW in 2027. AMD appears poised for continued server and PC share gains, too.”
While Leopold has both Nvidia and AMD stock rated as a buy, unlike NVDA, he rates AMD as an outperform. His strong buy rating of NVDA and $272 price target imply a one-year upside potential of 53%. Meanwhile, he gave AMD shares an Outperform rating, with a $377 price target that points toward an ROI of 78% over the next 12 months.