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I remember the first computer that I ever built (it was cheaper to do it yourself back at the dawn of globalization). I used an AMD 386 rather than an Intel 3

I remember the first computer that I ever built (it was cheaper to do it yourself back at the dawn of globalization). I used an AMD 386 rather than an Intel 386. Simply for the youthful reasons that I liked AMD's logo better, and I've always tended to root for the underdog. I'm not much of a PC gamer, and so I haven't built a machine from scratch or thought much about individual components in decades. But there's a small flicker of my teenage self way down in there, pumping his fist and giving a cheer.

neogodless 4y ago
> root for the underdog This has been a lot of it for me. I didn't switch to AMD until the Athlon XP 1700+ came out. I've stuck with them for desktop builds, mostly, except a few budget "Intel Gxxx" cpus, while I stuck with Intel for laptop purchases until the Ryzen 4xxx chips came out. I've switched between Nvidia and ATI/AMD a lot over the years. If Intel becomes the underdog (against the AMD and Apple titans), I guess I'll have to hope they put out good products :)
dragontamer 4y ago
> I've always tended to root for the underdog. Time to start rooting for Intel now, lol. ------ I've been rooting for Intel's AVX512 instruction set for some time, because I really think its a great technology. But with Zen3/4 on the way with rumored AVX512, and with Intel's most recent decisions to cut AVX512 from 12th gen Core-i7 processors, its hard to find an advantage for Intel right now. Intel supports DDR5 a few months earlier than AMD, and Intel is doing some smart things with CXL and I/O space rather than CPU space. The new big.LITTLE design is interesting, but the loss of AVX512 is pretty big (and Intel really should fix that IMO).
- neogodless 4y ago
  Just to clarify, Zen 3 has been out since November 2020. (Zen 3+ earlier this year.) Zen 4 is not yet formally announced (at least not the full technical details), so presumably that's what you mean. Intel's biggest remaining advantage is if you want a laptop with Thunderbolt. It should theoretically be available on AMD laptops, but I don't know if any have become available yet. EDIT: See below, Zen 4 is announced but not yet available, so performance and final details are pending (including models, performance, etc.)
  - willis936 4y ago
    Zen 4 has been formally announced. Do you mean it has not launched? https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announced-zen4-pcie5-ddr5-am5-coming-fall https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announce...
    - neogodless 4y ago
      Yes, thanks for clarifying.
briffle 4y ago
Mine was a cyrix "pentium compatible". I miss having 3 players in the game. I believe they got bought by Transmeta, back when Linus Torvalds was employed by them.
- deaddodo 4y ago
  Cyrix was bought by Via (via National Semiconductor) and rolled into their Isaiah architecture along with Centaur's architecture. That was then used in Nano[1]. It is now being used in Chinese co-developed and fabbed x86 options[2]. The rest of their technology was bought by AMD and used in it's MediaGX/Geode chips[3]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Nano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Nano 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode_(processor)#AMD_Geode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode_(processor)#AMD_Geode
jhenkens 4y ago
Different generation - my first build was an Athlon 64, and my only AMD build to date (of maybe 5 or 6 machines over 20 years). Loved the struggle of being x64 when it was still so new to consumers.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nickserv 4y ago
I have a bit of that root for the underdog mentality too, but my support of AMD in the last few years has been due in large part for their Linux support. Not having to worry about 3D drivers working on a kernel update is such a nice thing. Of course, when I started, Linux was very much the underdog, and not on billions of devices.
- toast0 4y ago
  > my support of AMD in the last few years has been due in large part for their Linux support. > Not having to worry about 3D drivers working on a kernel update is such a nice thing. Intel does a pretty good job of kernel GPU drivers too, I thought? Their network card drivers aren't bad either. And they usually support FreeBSD as well as Linux, although sometimes Linux support comes much earlier than FreeBSD.
the8472 4y ago
> I'm not much of a PC gamer, and so I haven't built a machine from scratch or thought much about individual components in decades. There's a grown-up version: build/videoediting/whatever-machine with a Threadripper ;)

neogodless 4y ago

> root for the underdog This has been a lot of it for me. I didn't switch to AMD until the Athlon XP 1700+ came out. I've stuck with them for desktop builds, mostly, except a few budget "Intel Gxxx" cpus, while I stuck with Intel for laptop purchases until the Ryzen 4xxx chips came out. I've switched between Nvidia and ATI/AMD a lot over the years. If Intel becomes the underdog (against the AMD and Apple titans), I guess I'll have to hope they put out good products :)

dragontamer 4y ago

> I've always tended to root for the underdog. Time to start rooting for Intel now, lol. ------ I've been rooting for Intel's AVX512 instruction set for some time, because I really think its a great technology. But with Zen3/4 on the way with rumored AVX512, and with Intel's most recent decisions to cut AVX512 from 12th gen Core-i7 processors, its hard to find an advantage for Intel right now. Intel supports DDR5 a few months earlier than AMD, and Intel is doing some smart things with CXL and I/O space rather than CPU space. The new big.LITTLE design is interesting, but the loss of AVX512 is pretty big (and Intel really should fix that IMO).

neogodless 4y ago
Just to clarify, Zen 3 has been out since November 2020. (Zen 3+ earlier this year.) Zen 4 is not yet formally announced (at least not the full technical details), so presumably that's what you mean. Intel's biggest remaining advantage is if you want a laptop with Thunderbolt. It should theoretically be available on AMD laptops, but I don't know if any have become available yet. EDIT: See below, Zen 4 is announced but not yet available, so performance and final details are pending (including models, performance, etc.)
- willis936 4y ago
  Zen 4 has been formally announced. Do you mean it has not launched? https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announced-zen4-pcie5-ddr5-am5-coming-fall https://www.anandtech.com/show/17399/amd-ryzen-7000-announce...
  - neogodless 4y ago
    Yes, thanks for clarifying.

briffle 4y ago

Mine was a cyrix "pentium compatible". I miss having 3 players in the game. I believe they got bought by Transmeta, back when Linus Torvalds was employed by them.

deaddodo 4y ago
Cyrix was bought by Via (via National Semiconductor) and rolled into their Isaiah architecture along with Centaur's architecture. That was then used in Nano[1]. It is now being used in Chinese co-developed and fabbed x86 options[2]. The rest of their technology was bought by AMD and used in it's MediaGX/Geode chips[3]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Nano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Nano 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode_(processor)#AMD_Geode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode_(processor)#AMD_Geode

jhenkens 4y ago

Different generation - my first build was an Athlon 64, and my only AMD build to date (of maybe 5 or 6 machines over 20 years). Loved the struggle of being x64 when it was still so new to consumers.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nickserv 4y ago

I have a bit of that root for the underdog mentality too, but my support of AMD in the last few years has been due in large part for their Linux support. Not having to worry about 3D drivers working on a kernel update is such a nice thing. Of course, when I started, Linux was very much the underdog, and not on billions of devices.

toast0 4y ago
> my support of AMD in the last few years has been due in large part for their Linux support. > Not having to worry about 3D drivers working on a kernel update is such a nice thing. Intel does a pretty good job of kernel GPU drivers too, I thought? Their network card drivers aren't bad either. And they usually support FreeBSD as well as Linux, although sometimes Linux support comes much earlier than FreeBSD.

the8472 4y ago

> I'm not much of a PC gamer, and so I haven't built a machine from scratch or thought much about individual components in decades. There's a grown-up version: build/videoediting/whatever-machine with a Threadripper ;)