"Since AMD introduced the Zambezi architecture or more known under the Bulldozer brand, the reactions of the general public were kinda mixed. AMD loyalists found the new innovations/features a solid step forward in the right direction. In general the enthusiast crowd got spoiled with far higher clock frequencies, this running at similar voltages. But the performance depending on the application was sometimes lackluster. Intel's Sandy Bridge excelled in IPC (Instructions per Clock/Cycle), knocking any CPU that was previously produced, just of its socks. With Intel's 3rd generation Ivy Bridge, things haven't improved much for AMD at all. At a certain moment it was even leaked to the outside world, that AMD considered stopping completely in competing in the desktop segment with it's main rival Intel.
Luckily for the hardware fans, this hasn't happened at all and AMD has revised it's Bulldozer technology, now known as Piledriver. However don't get your hopes up too high as these are minor performance refinements. In fact the current Vishera ( FX processor ) is what Bulldozer should have been from the start. AMD was late too the party, pretty late and it will take them a while to fight back. Main advantage for them was that the socket AM3+ socket could be reused and a sole bios update of the mainboard is all that is required to get the latest desktop CPU running on your motherboard."
