AMD is to report its fourth-quarter results after the market close tonight and the outfit has already hinted  that it will not be that good.

AMD guided fourth-quarter revenue down 10 per cent quarter-over-quarter with expectations for computing and graphics to be up quarter-over-quarter and shipments to consoles to be down quarter-over-quarter due to seasonality.

Gartner had already warned that world-wide PC shipments had declined 8 per cent so the chances of AMD pulling any rabbits out of hats when it depends on PCs was bleak.

AMD is now into its fourth year of restructuring, waiting for Zen to ship and without much else to hope for. If the company had not managed to get its chips into nearly every games console we suspect the staff would be hiding behind the sofa pretending to be out every time there was a knock on the door in case it was the bailiffs calling.

Based on this we actually think that AMD will disappoint the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street and report a slightly lower than expected revenue. In fact we think that this quarter and the next will be dismal for AMD which will not see much of change until Zen shows up.

If Zen does well, and the PC market picks up a bit, AMD might re-appear leaner and meaner. But the company is cutting it extremely fine too much damage done over the next three quarters might sink the company completely. Either way, AMD profits are a long way off.