Computer chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. delivered solid if unspectacular first-quarter financial results that beat expectations even though sales fell sharply from a year ago.

AMD reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of 6 cents per share on revenue of $1.27 billion, down 23% from the same period a year ago. Still, it was just enough to beat Wall Street’s forecast of earnings of 5 cents per share on $1.26 billion in revenue.

The company’s earnings report comes less than a week after rival chipmaker Intel Corp. saw its stock fall more than 9% on the back of weaker demand in its key data center business. AMD said it has also felt the effects of those headwinds, but not by nearly as much since it has a smaller data center footprint than its rival, and saw some encouraging growth in its server processor and graphics processing unit sales.

AMD Chief Executive Officer Dr. Lisa Su said the company’s data center GPU revenue doubled over a year ago, with gross margins up 41%. The company also saw gross margin improvements in its Ryzen and EYPC processors, Su said.

Breaking things down by division, AMD’s computing and graphics business unit pulled in $831 million in sales, down 26%. It also saw lower graphics sales, though these were offset somewhat by stronger client and data center GPU demand.

The company’s enterprise, embedded and semicustom revenue came to $441 million, down 17 percent from a year ago.

Those revenue drops were expected, however, and investors may have been encouraged by AMD’s guidance for the second quarter. The company is projecting revenue of $1.52 billion for the second quarter, which is more or less in line with Wall Street’s expectations. AMD’s stock rose more than 4% in after-hours trading.

“AMD performed exactly as they said they would and offered a very positive outlook,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. “The company is in a very strong position in the future as it will roll out a brand new set of CPU and GPU products. AMD needs to make it count in 2019 before Intel’s updated 10-nanometer lineup emerges in 2020 and 2021.”

The new products will include AMD’s seven-nanometer Ryzen desktop processors, which the company had earlier said it expects big things from when they ship later this year. In January, AMD officials said they’re hoping for a 50% boost in sales of new PCs powered by those chips.

AMD can also take encouragement from other developments in the last few months. For instance, the company said in March it is partnering with Google LLC to power its new Stadia videogame streaming service. It also launched a new generation of its Zen-based microprocessors for low-powered notebooks in the last quarter that should help it compete better in that market segment.

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