Graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) saw its stock fall more than 7 percent on Thursday after it reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the second quarter of its 2018 fiscal year, which ended on July 31.

• EPS: Excluding certain items, $1.01 in earnings per share vs. $0.70 in earnings per share as expected by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters.

• Revenue: $2.23 billion vs. $1.96 billion as expected by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters.

In terms of guidance, the company said it expects to generate $2.35 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2 percent, in the third quarter of its 2018 fiscal year. Analysts were expecting guidance of $2.13 billion for the upcoming quarter, according to Thomson Reuters.

Strong reactions to earnings results are not unusual for Nvidia, which is popular with investors these days as the company has emphasized the importance of its graphics processing units for artificial intelligence. In May Nvidia stock rose more than 13 percent after the company released its earnings results for the previous quarter, beating estimates on both EPS and revenue. Ahead of earnings on Thursday Nvidia stock closed down more than 4 percent.

Revenue was up 56 percent year over year, with the company's Datacenter revenue -- including sales of GPUs to public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services -- leading the way at 175 percent revenue growth, even though it was up just 2 percent sequentially. That -- and selling on the news -- could explain the stock drop despite the earnings beat, Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy told CNBC. Indeed, sales in the Datacenter segment ended up below the FactSet analyst estimate, according to StreetAccount.

Nvidia's gaming revenue -- the biggest contributor to the company's top line -- was up 52 percent year over year, and it beat analysts' estimates, according to StreetAccount.

Sentiment around Nvidia has continued to be generally positive since then. Last month Canaccord Genuity raised its estimates for Nvidia "yet again" as it sees continuing strength in the gaming and automotive markets.

The opportunity around cryptocurrency has caused some analysts to become more optimistic about Nvidia. Two months after Pacific Crest downgraded Nvidia stock, the company made a U-turn and raised the stock's rating .

"Our strategy is to stay alert to this fast-changing market, knowing that GPUs are highly efficient at running the algorithms used to mine cryptocurrencies," Nvidia executive vice president and chief financial officer Colette Kress told financial analysts on the company's quarterly earnings call.