I’ve been buying AMD since the K6-2, because AMD almost always had the better price/performance ratio (as opposed to outright top performance) and, almost as importantly, because I liked supporting the underdog.
That means it was folks like me who helped keep AMD in business long enough to catch up with and then pass Intel. You’re welcome.
It also means I recently bought my first Intel product in decades, an Arc GPU. Weird that it’s the underdog now, LOL.
I’ve got an FX 8350, sure AMD fell behind during that time but it was by no means a bad CPU imo. Main PC’s got a 7800X3D now but my FX system is still working just fine to this day, especially since upgrading to an SSD and 16GB RAM some years ago. It can technically even run Cyberpunk 2077 with console like frame rates on high settings.
But a Phenom II X6 outperformed it sometimes, single thread and multithreaded. That’s crazy given Pildriver’s two generation jump and huge process/transistor count advantage. Power consumption was awful in any form factor.
Look. I am an AMD simp. I will praise my 7800X3D all day. But there were a whole bunch of internet apologist for Bulldozer back then, so I don’t want to mince words:
It was bad.
Objectively bad, a few software niches aside. Between cheaper Phenoms and the reasonably priced 2500K/4670K, it made zero financial sense 99% of the time.
I’ve been buying AMD since the K6-2, because AMD almost always had the better price/performance ratio (as opposed to outright top performance) and, almost as importantly, because I liked supporting the underdog.
That means it was folks like me who helped keep AMD in business long enough to catch up with and then pass Intel. You’re welcome.
It also means I recently bought my first Intel product in decades, an Arc GPU. Weird that it’s the underdog now, LOL.
Love my 3DNow! K6-2, also my starter.
Oh man, I’d forgotten all about 3dnow!
Except anything Bulldozer-derived, heh. Those were more expensive and less performant than the Phenom II CPUs and Llano APUs.
I’ve got an FX 8350, sure AMD fell behind during that time but it was by no means a bad CPU imo. Main PC’s got a 7800X3D now but my FX system is still working just fine to this day, especially since upgrading to an SSD and 16GB RAM some years ago. It can technically even run Cyberpunk 2077 with console like frame rates on high settings.
I mean… It functioned as a CPU.
But a Phenom II X6 outperformed it sometimes, single thread and multithreaded. That’s crazy given Pildriver’s two generation jump and huge process/transistor count advantage. Power consumption was awful in any form factor.
Look. I am an AMD simp. I will praise my 7800X3D all day. But there were a whole bunch of internet apologist for Bulldozer back then, so I don’t want to mince words:
It was bad.
Objectively bad, a few software niches aside. Between cheaper Phenoms and the reasonably priced 2500K/4670K, it made zero financial sense 99% of the time.
Bulldozer was AMD’s Pentium 4.
Even down to the questionable marketing.