I've become something of CPU collector in recent years, and I have a nice line of p6 cpus from thePentium Pro -> Pentium 2 -> Pentium 3 -> Pentium M -> Core 2 that conveniently sidesteps those awful Netburst p4 CPUs.
It feels like this (p6+) microarch has finally run out of road and needs a rethink. What 'saved' intel was a change in philosophy rather than chasing MHz they chased power savings. And with Apple's new chips that history is repeating itself (and appears to be with a similar outcome).
It's an exciting time for hardware again because Intel and AMD are going to have to react to this and I think there's still legs to x86, it's survived everything thats been thrown at it so far...
Also, some one, some day, had to disrupt it. Maybe this is it, maybe not.
I bought i486DX for $20 month ago, as a memo of my first CPU.
[1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/12689/cpu-design-guru-jim-kel...
Edit: hadn't clicked through to your article. my comment is redundant
https://www.macworld.com/article/3572624/tsmc-details-its-fu...
cf. Anandtech article from 2003:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1083/2