Advanced Micro Devices gained market share on its larger rival Intel Corp. as third quarter results emerged.

The two cross-town semiconductor companies have intensely battled to lure customers with lower prices as well as higher performance, according to market research firm, IDC. Intel's share of the global microprocessor market dipped in the third quarter and rival AMD increased its share by an equal amount.

AMD's share of the global market rose 0.4% over the second quarter to 23.5% overall, while Intel lost the same amount to finish the third quarter with a 76.3% share, IDC said.

An uptick in the overall market was significant for AMD because it marked the second consecutive quarter in which AMD had gained market share against Intel, following several quarters of decline.

AMD's arsenal was reinforced this September with the launch of its quad-core Opteron processor, aimed at the high-margin server arena. While Intel has had its own quad-core chip out for over a year, it was a combination of two dual-core's in a single package - a move some analyst say will help the company keep its costs down.

AMD this month reported a third-quarter loss of $396 million, as its costs rose from a year ago. Revenues increased to $1.63 billion from $1.33 billion.

Intel, on the other hand, posted a 43% rise in profits to $1.86 billion. The increase was due to higher sales of processors for notebook computers, the PC market's fastest-growing segment, and to Intel's restructuring efforts.

The overall PC processor market saw a sequential growth of 14.3% in the third quarter to reach a record level, IDC said. The strong showing in shipments had an impact on revenues, which grew 14.8% to $7.95 billion.

For the year, IDC predicts revenue of $32.3 billion, an increase of 7.5% over 2006, which Rau called decent growth.

Intel