Intel's latest Sandy Bridge chips are also doing well, but AMD's processors are finding wide acceptance among PC makers and buyers, McCarron said. The lower average selling price of AMD's chips may have also been an advantage, McCarron said.

The average price for PC processors was US$107 during the quarter, which was the highest in nearly five years, McCarron said. The last time processor prices were above $107 was in the first quarter of 2007.

Despite the year-over-year growth, AMD lost market share sequentially to Intel. Intel held a 79.9 percent market share during the second quarter, compared to AMD's 19.4 percent. Manufacturing issues hurt AMD in the short term and a short supply of chips from the company helped Intel gain sequential market share.

AMD in September said manufacturing partner GlobalFoundries had problems with chips manufactured using a 32-nanometer process. The yield problems led to a limited supply of AMD's Fusion chips for mainstream PCs.

AMD's desktop chip supplies were especially hurt with the manufacturing issues, and Intel's desktop processor share went up sequentially as a result, McCarron said. In weighing manufacturing problems, AMD chose to meet the quota of laptop chip supplies, which stemmed some of the sequential market-share loss.