[paulmd]

sure, buy what you want, and competition certainly brings down prices, I don't disagree.

But making a low-cost product was not what AMD set out to do at the outset, so that's not really a defense of the technical flaws in Bulldozer's design. Sure, when they realized it was a trainwreck, they cut prices. Everyone does that, though, and that wasn't plan A.

Nobody is going to go through the expense of R&D and design and tapeout and then just not sell the product because it sucks/"missed expectations". You adjust the price to wherever it needs to be to sell the product.

Even in laptop the bulldozer chips were way power-hungry (actually this matters a lot more than in desktop) and just not that good a performer.

It was Intel's CEO's job to smile and sell hyper-clocked 14nm chips going against TSMC 7nm and it was AMD's CEO's job to smile and sell bulldozers going up against sandy bridge. That's what officers of the company do, even when they know it's shit. You go to war with the army you have, not the one you want, and you go to market with the product you have, not the one you want.