Bulldozer, AMD’s Crash Modernization: Front End and Execution Engine
I remember deliberating between AMD's eight core FX-8150 and the latest Intel Sandy Bridge in early 2012.Even though lots of people consider Bulldozer to be an AMD misstep, I don't regret my choice: AMD's eight integer cores performed favorably compared with the four real cores plus four hyperthreads of the Intel. Considering I bought it to be used primarily for compiling, it was a good choice.This is an interesting read, and seeing the design choices with knowledge of how things turned out later makes it even more interesting.