In business, just like in real life, companies can be a victim of expectations.   Fortunately for chipmaker Intel it handily beat the estimates of Wall Street's top researchers, reporting its best quarter ever.  On Tuesday night after the closing bell Intel reported a Q2 2010 revenue of $10.8B USD, handily topping the $10.25B USD predicted by analysts.

Chipmaker AMD, the David to Intel's Goliath, had some good news of its own on Thursday.  The company posted a net loss for Q2 2010 of only $43M USD, $110M USD less than the loss widely predicted by Wall Street.  AMD reported revenue of $1.65B USD, where analysts had predicted it to pull in only $1.54B USD.  It also posted a promising Non-GAAP earnings were $83M USD.

AMD has benefited from its success in the GPU segment, and, like Intel, by a strong upgrade cycle demand for CPUs.  AMD credits stronger demand for notebook CPUs and GPUs as a major source of its turnaround.  With its latest results, AMD inches closer to finally crawling out of the money pit it has long been languishing in.  In fact, if the current results are any indication, AMD may return to profitability within a quarter or two.  

Ultimately, AMD and Intel are being buoyed up by a strong upgrade push both in the desktop and notebook sector.  A major part of this push is thanks to Windows 7, Microsoft's latest consumer operating system that is earning unanimous praise from reviewers and customers alike.

While some worry about the upgrade craze dying down, it seems likely to continue strong for some time while so many customers still have Windows XP.  Additionally, businesses will likely slowly jump onboard the upgrade train as they look to transition to Windows 7.  If Microsoft can replicate Windows 7's success with Windows 8, the outlook for both Intel and AMD may continue to be just as rosy.