Intel Calls AMD's Chips 'Snake Oil' (tomshardware.com) 189
Aaron Klotz, reporting for Tom's Hardware: Intel recently published a new playbook titled "Core Truths" that put AMD under direct fire for utilizing its older Zen 2 CPU architecture in its latest Ryzen 7000 mobile series CPU product stack. Intel later removed the document, but we have the slides below. The playbook is designed to educate customers about AMD's product stack and even calls it "snake oil."
Intel's playbook specifically talks about AMD's latest Ryzen 5 7520U, criticizing the fact it features AMD's Zen 2 architecture from 2019 even though it sports a Ryzen 7000 series model name. Further on in the playbook, the company accuses AMD of selling "half-truths" to unsuspecting customers, stressing that the future of younger kid's education needs the best CPU performance from the latest and greatest CPU technologies made today. To make its point clear, Intel used images in its playbook referencing "snake oil" and images of used car salesmen.
The playbook also criticizes AMD's new naming scheme for its Ryzen 7000 series mobile products, quoting ArsTechnica: "As a consumer, you're still intended to see the number 7 and think, 'Oh, this is new.'" Intel also published CPU benchmark comparisons of the 7520U against its 13th Gen Core i5-1335U to back up its points. Unsurprisingly, the 1335U was substantially faster than the Zen 2 counterpart.
Intel's playbook specifically talks about AMD's latest Ryzen 5 7520U, criticizing the fact it features AMD's Zen 2 architecture from 2019 even though it sports a Ryzen 7000 series model name. Further on in the playbook, the company accuses AMD of selling "half-truths" to unsuspecting customers, stressing that the future of younger kid's education needs the best CPU performance from the latest and greatest CPU technologies made today. To make its point clear, Intel used images in its playbook referencing "snake oil" and images of used car salesmen.
The playbook also criticizes AMD's new naming scheme for its Ryzen 7000 series mobile products, quoting ArsTechnica: "As a consumer, you're still intended to see the number 7 and think, 'Oh, this is new.'" Intel also published CPU benchmark comparisons of the 7520U against its 13th Gen Core i5-1335U to back up its points. Unsurprisingly, the 1335U was substantially faster than the Zen 2 counterpart.
Smart to pull it (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Intel's entire Core iN-NNNN scheme can't be reasonably viewed as anything other than a similar attempt to ensure customers can't easily spot different chip generations. Intel has been running this game themselves for more than decade.
Re:Smart to pull it (Score:4, Interesting)
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Of course they have. How do you think they spotted it so easily?
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Their mobile CPU naming schemes are awful, and have been since IceLake.
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I'm talking about the commercial product names, not the internal product names like Raptor Lake.
Example: i7-1065G7. Any idea what that is, or if it's better/worse than an i5-1135G7?
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AMD and Intel have had a bizarre frenemy relationship for decades.
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yes because - you're a nerd that reads slashdot and is specifically aware of intels convention. To someone outside IT its a string of numbers; and that IF they get to see them. Half the time the marketing people just say New Core-i7 laptop, where new can mean anything, and we only know its a i7 and not what generation.
It makes it easier for intel to unload old chips, and integrators to unload old systems.
Haha (Score:5, Insightful)
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A majority of people on the planet have no use for the latest and greatest versions of CPU and the associated chipset technologies for what they need to do day to day.
Agreed. My current Windows 10 system is a Dell XPS 420 with an Intel Core2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66 GHz and 8 GB RAM (given to me by a friend a few years ago) and 512 SSD (using add-on SATA3 card) and my home-built Linux Mint 21 system has a ASRock Z77 Extreme3 motherboard (also inherited from a friend) with an Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.4 GHz (Ivy Bridge) and 32 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD (for system files) and they both run their respective OSes very well. Granted, neither can (officially) run Windows 11, but I'm f
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That same sentence called my attention too. I couldn't see the relationship between a fast processor, more than that, a leading-edge processor is implied, and a good education.
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They even went with the "Think of the children!~!!" defense, they must be desparate. "the future of younger kid's education needs the best CPU performance from the latest and greatest CPU technologies made today" And why just younger kids? And a bad apostrophe. Somebody's getting fired or at least bitched out for this one.
Please. No one ever gets fired for thinking of the children. It's why that excuse is more worn out than a seasoned whore at a brothel.
If anything, someone should be getting bitched out for making the claim that kids today need the latest and greatest CPUs. For what? Teaching about 174 genders in elementary school? Social media addiction hardly requires the latest and greatest, which appears to be more the sponsored goal today among those demanding we not regulate social media among The Produ, er I mean
Re: Haha (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Haha (Score:3)
174 genders? It's kinda settled on boy/girl/neither. The extent that they teach it in school (even in hedonistsic California) is that it's ok to be yourself. My 13yo mostly goes by "they" because they don't want to be a tween girl "because all the creepy macho douchebags" and I really can't blame them. My dad refuses to call them they, but sees 0 issue with gender fluid and says none of it was a big deal in the 60s.
I really don't understand people who are constantly looking for something that has 0 effect o
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I was going to say the same thing, what kids need is better quality teachers, and a good curriculum, not to open their web browser 50ms faster.
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If you want better quality teachers, make the job more attractive. Currently even people who are driven to teach, tend to end up don't something else.
Get rid of administrators and all consultants (Score:3)
If you want better quality teachers, make the job more attractive. Currently even people who are driven to teach, tend to end up don't something else.
Want to make teaching more attractive? Want to get more money into the classroom? Get rid of administrators and all consultants.
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Want to make teaching more attractive? Want to get more money into the classroom? Get rid of administrators and all consultants.
Thanks for your nuanced input... /s
Doesn't matter for consumers. (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter which way you turn you're putting a supercomputer under your desk, and then hobbling it my shoving everything through a browser. :)
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Buys PC for kiddo with high end GPU, kid just watches YouTube and plays Minecraft. Sigh.
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Sounds like you didn't do some basic "use case" research before you hit the buy button
Since GPU's are modular, you should have started with the base system and scaled up the GPU based on user requirements.
Getting "upgrades" into the house (Score:3)
Sounds like you didn't do some basic "use case" research before you hit the buy button Since GPU's are modular, you should have started with the base system and scaled up the GPU based on user requirements.
You are single aren't you? Later in life you may recognize "the kids" as the perfect vehicle to get "upgrades" into the house. ;-)
Got the high end GPU past your significant other (Score:2)
Buys PC for kiddo with high end GPU, kid just watches YouTube and plays Minecraft. Sigh.
Genius. You got the high end GPU past your significant other and into the house. Now you just need a midnight swap between the kid's computer and yours.
Fighting over 2nd place is funny (Score:4, Insightful)
" younger kid's education needs the best CPU performance from the latest and greatest CPU technologies made today"
So M3/ARM?
2nd place is the 1st loser! (Score:2)
2nd place is the 1st loser!
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RPi could get kid through CS grad school (Score:2)
A raspberry pi is a good computer for a student to learn about computing.
A current raspberry pi can probably get a kid through CS grad school curriculum wise. Admittedly good non-RPi display, keyboard and mouse would be needed. But computationally, there's plenty of CPU and RAM for school projects, even at the grad school level. Software wise, its a pretty damn complete Linux environment.
i5-13400? (Score:3)
shit talkers (Score:5, Interesting)
Intel is talking shit about how AMD is using old design cores in new chips. They seem to have forgotten how they had to write off netburst and go back to the P3 to develop the Core line.
Intel says students 15 and up need our TOP CPU! (Score:2)
Intel says students 15 and up need our TOP CPU!
He ain't wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The number scheme for ryzen mobile is really stupid and makes it harder to search for current gen processors.
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Re:He ain't wrong (Score:4, Funny)
What are you talking about? It's perfectly clear that the Intel i5-1370P is their latest and greatest mobile chip, and much newer than the Intel i5-10210U, despite the latter having a bigger product number. And nobody would be confused that the i5-1340P is faster than the smaller i5-13420H. And of course their i5-1035G7 is obviously a seventh, sorry, no, tenth gen CPU too, as is the i5-1035G4 and i5-1035G1.
Both companies have intentionally abandoned understandable CPU naming schemes to obfuscate what you're getting.
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Both companies have intentionally abandoned understandable CPU naming schemes to obfuscate what you're getting.
I thought so too until reading Intel's slideshow. AMD's got an easily decodable scheme:
1st digit is the release year. 7 is 2023.
2nd digit is the product (7 for Ryzen 7, 5 for 5 etc, some duplicates, higher numbers are higher clocks)
3rd digit is the arch version 1 for zen 2, 2 for zen 2, etc...
4th is the segment within the above 0 for the lower performing model 5 for the upper performing one.
5th (le
Re: He ain't wrong (Score:2)
Which number in the Intel model scheme indicates it is the latest generation?
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Gamers Nexus (Score:3)
Latest and greatest is best? (Score:3)
to unsuspecting customers, stressing that the future of younger kid's education needs the best CPU performance from the latest and greatest CPU technologies made today.
My sister has three kids - 19f, 17f, 13m. I've noticed that even though they're intelligent kids, biased I know, they just don't viscerally understand computers like people my own age (50m) tend to. Everything is all tables or point and click, software is downloaded and installed, OSes come on a thumbdrive and almost magically install. They don't have to think about it.
They'll never know what it's like to have to PEEK() and POKE() into memory to get the old 8-bit computers to do things, or have monstrous manuals that came with them which told you all about it's internals and how to use them. Then later in the PC age how to install and manage interface cards, play with various drivers and resolve IRQ / DMA conflicts, play around in the Windows Registry, or update AUTOEXEC.BAT or other configuration files.
While it sounds tedious, because it is, all that knowledge has come in handy over the years because I often know how to fix stuff because I can understand how it all fits together at a "base" level when troubleshooting. I've tried to teach them, oh how I've tried, but they just don't get why they need to learn it - it's always why do all that hard work to learn how to do things so they can play on something "old" when they can just go to their App Store of choice and get something "new" instantly?
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While Intel's point is stupid fear mongering "kids can't learn if the CPU architecture existed 4 years ago, no matter the performance", the intent isn't really compatible with your point.
"Education" does not refer to computer education, it would refer to all sorts of things to use the computers for, rather than the computers to be an end in and of themselves.
In terms of why they don't get why they 'need' to learn it, well, because they don't *need* to learn it. Not every computer user needs to be well vers
Celeron (Score:2)
I just bought a couple Atom-based desktops, 10W and 15W, to replace some old Xeon gear (230W?) and the chips are labeled 'Celeron'.
I don't even think they're based on the Pentium III core! Harrumph!
Akshually I looked up the specs because they did matter and I got a good deal [amzn.to] like any buyer should do *if it matters*. 2GHz clock with VT-d at 10W TDP? Yes, please.
The NAS these things will connect to has a Ryzen 5600-G because that was the right tool for *that* job.
Celeron snake oil, though!
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If it's still higher-performing vs. Intel's.... (Score:2)
Intel dares to spout such crap? Seriously? (Score:2)
They must be closer to a richly deserved collapse than I thought.
Core Truths? (Score:2)
I thought from the title that they are talking shit about Intel's processors. If they are dissing AMD, they should call it Zen truths.
So? (Score:2)
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Dear Intel (Score:2)
Your latest integer multiply instructions have 3 cycle latency. AMD's integer multiply instructions had 3 cycle latency nearly 20 years ago.
Talk about out of date.
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Re:Well Yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Because AMD's chipsets are cheap and kind of bad overall.
Let us know when that check from Intel shows up!
I can tell if a PC is AMD based or Intel based after 5 to 10 minutes of using it.
Those are rookie numbers. It only takes me about 10 seconds after logging in. Start>About your PC>Processor. Beyond that, I 100% call bullshit.
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Damnit, I forgot to close the quote tag.
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Sorry you can't comprehend things that don't automatically work the same way for you.
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Yes, in the sense that I'm using the word "feel" in a common way instead of a more accurate description of "perceiving". Yes, I can perceive the differences.
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What about a completely new AMD CPU vs. an Intel CPU from a decade ago?
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Yeah, I could just LOOK at whatever is inside the damn thing,
I do not know about you but when I look inside many computers these days I cannot tell which processor it is without removing the AIO waterblock or CPU cooler. And then wiping off the thermal paste. Do you have Xray vision? I did not get that in my genetic makeup, sadly.
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Hey, the 90's called and they said they want their anti-K6 FUD back.
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
The K6 was dependent on VIA chipsets. AMD was scarcely even making them at the time. One of the best things about the K7 was being able to get a vendor chipset instead of the garbage from VIA.
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Yea, but you also obviously also haven't tried a AMD chip since they switched to 64-bit.
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
I'll happily take 90-110% performance for 50% the price and lower operating (power) costs. Both camps shit the bed every so often, but AMD has rarely done me wrong. I wish their GPUs could get there too bc Nvidia's substandard memory sucks this gen.
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Can you get in details on how it "feels different"?
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But at least I admit I am an AMD fanboy. Ryzen in my laptop, Ryzen and Radeon in my gaming PC.
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
AMD CPUs are fantastic at a (less than it used to be) fraction of the price. I'd feel less dirty at buying an Nvidia GPU if they weren't shorting us memory this gen.
I build a PC every ~decade and upgrade graphics every ~5yrs. (Current is a AMD 6950, 128gb ram (bc why not and ramdisks are faster than SSD) and a 4070) I do more video than gaming though.
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Sometimes even the sounds inside the computers case that aren't related to fans.
Now we know you're 100% full of shit. There isn't anything inside there that makes any noise perceptible to human hearing except for fans, and possibly a rotating hard disk. Maybe a water pump if you're running wild with liquid cooling.
What, you think you can hear the difference between the millions of sub-micron transistors switching back and forth a couple billion times per second? And somehow identify the manufacturer from it? The best you could hope for would be some coil whine under performance loa
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I can hear the 10gb nic in my desktop when it’s busy. Not sure if it’s the card itself or it causes noise in the power supply.
Re:Well Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
It's probably coil whine. Same thing happens with some GPUs - under load they will start creating interference that gets picked up by audio amplification circuitry and it makes "noise". Usually the fault of poorly isolated or shielded audio inputs and components or manufacturing defects.
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Terrible HDMI in my PC setup? No thanks.
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Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
Idk the ~2005 era motherboards definitely had some high pitched whine. Moreso if you used onboard audio
Re:Well Yeah (Score:5, Funny)
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New ears altogether.
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Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
Less off topic than the dip shit tangerine idol followers that need to turn every fucking topic into politics.
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
Yes, I appreciate the irony, but in my defense, I'm drunkposting.
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That's called coil whine, and Intel produces more of it due to consuming 4x as much energy as ryzen
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Because AMD's chipsets are cheap and kind of bad overall.
Define "bad" as AMD chips since Ryzen have consistently beaten Intel ones in performance and in many cases, price as well. So if AMD was "bad", Intel must be "terrible".
They make budget hardware for budget consumers which is fine if you aren't a gamer.
Have you been paying attention to chips since 2017 because that is absolutely not true? Since the launch of Ryzen, gamers have made it their preferred choice. Between Intel and AMD, AMD has made specific CPUs for gamers like the 5800X3D and 7800X3D which offer the best performance per price (and in some cases performance alone).
Most people probably can't tell, but I can tell if a PC is AMD based or Intel based after 5 to 10 minutes of using it. They will always feel different, and AMD always feels bad by comparison.
Your impressi
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
Why are you wasting everyone's time with this nonsense? This isn't Reddit.
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Because you waste your time replying. Because this is a comments section for a posted news article and I have related thoughts. Are you fucking retarded?
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I'm well aware of the market gains AMD has made and the various blunders Intel has made. I'm not denying they have made strides and closed the gaps. Nor am I denying that AMD chips can benchmark well.
So basically you are aware of everything but you simply choose to ignore all indicators.
But benchmarks aren't everything, and the average real-life, everyday performance of AMD chips just isn't there compared to the average Intel chips.
Please cite the evidence where this is true. Or is this based on your "gut"? From my personal experience Intel performance has noticeably been inferior as their chip struggles at 10nm are well documented.
Even when AMD can make the better hardware, they always make inferior software (i.e. drivers).
Citation needed. What drivers are you talking about? If you are talking about Radeon, that are not CPUs.
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Improvement doesn't stop them from being bad overall anyway.
Again, if you are calling AMD "bad" then Intel should be "terrible" but refusing to label Intel "terrible" due to your bias.
It's a fundamental fact of benchmarks. Those benchmarks are only applicable to exactly that setup at that time. Sure, they give you an idea into the performance that you might get. But there are so many other uncontrolled factors at play. It's why you can install the exact same hardware into two different machines and have one of them perform noticeably worse than the other. The 10nm thing isn't really relevant to anything here.
To answer my question then: No, you do not have any evidence as you are basically saying nothing can be compared at all in any objective means. So it is only your "gut" telling you Intel is better. My gut and experience says otherwise.
he biggest and most notable AMD driver issues have been all related to their GPUs, yes, especially recently. However, their Ryzen chipset drivers have also seen plenty of smaller issues
So when asked again to provide citations you are still going with no citations but your "feeling"?
. Also, while the GPU driver issues are separate from any CPU driver issues, if their QA doesn't end up stopping these high-profile bad GPU driver releases, what trust do I have that they'll stop a future bad chipset driver update? The answer is that I don't, because they've let it happen on the GPU side too many times.
So you acknowledge that GPUs are separate from CPUs but
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Oh God. Intel ARC drivers. *eye twitch*
Why did you have to say that? I was having a good day.
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
AMD graphics drivers are shit.
Their chipset drivers are just fine.
Intel drivers have gotten worse over the years across the board. They keep bundling more shit you neither want nor need into them. I do not want your stupid utilities, Intel, I want the driver to support the same functionality in the OS already.
It's also notable that Intel patches for both windows and Linux have frequently damaged AMD performance. You cannot trust Intel with drivers!
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
"how would an Intel patch damage AMD performance?"
Hmm, perhaps slashdot is not for you. You certainly haven't been reading it.
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Because AMD's chipsets are cheap and kind of bad overall. They make budget hardware for budget consumers which is fine if you aren't a gamer. Most people probably can't tell, but I can tell if a PC is AMD based or Intel based after 5 to 10 minutes of using it. They will always feel different, and AMD always feels bad by comparison.
Some stuff never changes.
Back in the day, a friend of mine made the same claim, except it was comparing a Cyrix 6x86 to a Pentium to an AMD K5 (or something like that, it's been awhile).
We ran a blind test, or as close to blind test as we highschoolers could set up. He, of course, could not tell a difference in Windows, Internet browsing, launching programs, playing Warcraft 2, etc. The only detectable difference was the Cyrix which was weak in FPU-dependent games like Quake.
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Well, seeing as I've already had friends conduct a few similar as-close-to-blind-as-you-can-get type experiments as we could think of, I'll take my experiences as my own and yours as yours and your friend's. Some people legitimately cannot taste the difference between Coke and Pepsi in a blind test. Some people can. These types of things inherently cannot be applied to every human being on the planet.
So again, I emphasize the fact that I did say "most people probably can't tell". There are bound to be a few
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I'm honestly not sure if you're serious or not, but I do have some gold-plated HDMI cables for sale if you're interested? Guaranteed to make your monitor more vivid. (Sure, not everyone call tell the difference, but discerning customers certainly can.)
I call shenanigans. There is no way--no factor you could conceivably be experiencing--to tell the difference between an Intel / AMD / ARM of similar or equivalent speed.
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Some stuff never changes.
It's the same group of people that claim to be able to tell the difference between a speaker cable that has been "burned in" vs a new one. The same group that failed a blind test that compared a "burned in" cable, a fresh one, and a coat hanger.
Re: Well Yeah (Score:2)
I tried all those cheap chips and you could certainly tell the difference with a Cyrix or AMD K6 processor back then because system stability was trash. I blame it on VIA's chipset drivers, though. K7 with an AMD chipset was great.
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I ran various Cyrix chips for years. I loved them! Stability was never an issue for me. Don't forget that many/most of those chips were drop-in compatible with Pentiums. My first Cyrix was used on an Intel chipset mobo, using an overclocked bus to 75mhz and a 2x CPU multiplier. Those were the days!
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I wish Centaur was still around. They actually got some decent stuff out via Zhaoxin before they shut down in 2021. Maybe China might be able to get that CPU line up to par with either AMD or Intel.
Or even better, perhaps just switch to ARM or RISC-V.
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Woke is a very specific american cultural movement of a bunch of people with hero complex but no mind to actually understand any sort of depth of the issues that come with infantile and easily exploitable solutions.