Horrifyingly bad decisions with architecture - Bulldozer completely obliterated AMD's desktop market. Intel doesn't even look at AMD's opportunities when deciding on engineer salaries anymore.

They're trying to make a comeback with Zen, but one of the biggest issues with development is that you learn from the successes and failures of your previous product. If your previous product sucked, you're under an enormous amount of pressure to fix those problems before you even get started on your next generation. Otherwise, those problems will persist, and you'll get new problems as well.

They've stayed relevant in the GPU market, though.

I have a Bulldozer CPU in my main desktop machine, it works fine for what I use it for and I'm happy with what I paid for it. I wouldn't have got nearly as many cores in an Intel CPU at the same price point.

I am mainly using it to compile software though, which makes good use of multiple cores, probably closer to a "server" workload than a "desktop" one.

AMD can't compete on single thread performance and performance/watt. It's okay for a personal desktop and likely you'll save some bucks against Intel but for high-end desktops/workstations and servers they just can't compete at the moment.

You save a good amount of money though. Most of the high-end sub-$100 CPUs in the PassMark CPU benchmarks are AMD chips.

I just picked up the AMD Vishera -- 4.2 Ghz, easily overclockable to 4.5 with a proper cooling system, for $90.

For comparison, an Intel Core i3 4350 at 3.6 Ghz runs $205.

> They've stayed relevant in the GPU market, though.

And in APU (or "non-mobile SoC", if you will) market too: Xbox1 _and_ PS4 - that's a huge success by any measure.

These are not huge monetary successes, though.