Talking to CRN, Spicer said he is sure that profitability will return as long as the company sticks to its principles.

"From a personal stance, I am confident [AMD can be profitable]. I believe we are working with exactly the right customers, and over the last few years we have become much simpler to execute and do business with."

He said that in order to achieve profit, the company must ensure it is investing in the right areas.

"Moving forwards to 2016, we have to have profitable share growth," he said. "So it's choosing the right business to go after, both with the company itself and the ecosystem of partners. There is no point in us as a vendor chasing unprofitable partners.

"We want to focus [in the areas] we are good at - that's where we are going to invest heavily. That's things like winning the graphics battle with gaming and so forth, and we want to be part of this Windows 10 upgrade cycle."

Spicer so far has been a little optimistic this year. He thought that Windows 10 would drive an upgrade refresh, particularly as AMD works so well with the new OS.

He also thinks that the combination of Windows 10, the advent of e-sports - competitive online gaming - and new technology and products AMD is launching, means "PC is an exciting market".

Of course Spicer was extremely enthusiastic about Zen which he thinks will help its play in the high-end desktop space, and the server area. More cynical observers think that Zen will be AMD's last roll of the dice.