[calaphos]

Intels surprisingly fast 14nm processors come to mind. Born of necessity as they couldn't get their 10 and later 7nm processes working for years. Despite that Intel managed to keep up in single core performance with newer 7nm AMD chips, although at a mich higher power draw.

[deepnotderp]

That's because CPU performance cares less about transistor density and more about transistor performance, and 14nm drive strength was excellent

[0x457]

For like half of 14nm intel era, there was no competition on CPU market in any segment for them. Intel was able to improve their 14nm process and be better at branch prediction. Moving things to hardware implementation is what kept improving.

This isn't the same as getting more out of the same over and over again.

[Dalewyn]

Or today with Alder Lake and Raptor Lake(Refresh), where their CPUs made on Intel 7 (10nm) are on par if not slightly better than AMD's offerings made on TSMC 5nm.