Discussing AMD vs intel from 2017-present

 So...there was some discussion on the internet about why intel is behind AMD today, and I wanted to give my thoughts. Unfortunately on the forum I was on I got swarmed by AMD fanboys wanting to do their typical anti intel and pro AMD hugbox crap, and I decided to give my own account here. I admit, historically I'm a bit intel biased, but mainly because I bought AMD in the past CPU wise and I always felt like I got burned. The athlon XPs seemed to age worse than the Pentium 4s in some way, AMD through the core 2 era seemed to be falling behind, and when I got a phenom II X4 965, it aged poorly vs the intel first gen core series at the time. AMD has historically had a problem with their CPUs just...performing worse in gaming, and while they've since corrected the issue and are now the dominant CPU company for gamers if anything, yeah, I've been skeptical of AMD and that does lead to a slight bias. However, at the same time, performance is performance, and that's what I care about. From say, 2006-2017, AMD was just behind, sometimes laughably so (remember when they bombed so bad they stopped making new consumer CPUs for 5 years?), but beyond that, I really have nothing against the company and if they put out good products, I'll give them credit for that.

As such, let's really start from the top here.

 2017- Intel 7th gen vs Ryzen 1st gen

 So...I actually bought a CPU in early 2017 around this time. I was still hanging onto that old phenom II X4 965 that aged poorly, but quite frankly, most CPUs since just didn't provide enough of a performance jump to justify buying anything newer. I mean, the 2500k came out the year after I bought in 2011, it set the standard for the next half decade of PC gaming, and the 3570k, 4570k, 4670k, 6600k, and 7600k were all kinda just, iterations of the same thing. Unlike the GPU market today, intel didnt create tons of new tiers of products, although they did segment anything above 4 cores 8 threads into their "high end desktop" line, which was prohibitively expensive for most people. 

 But then AMD promised a come back with their ryzen line. It was hyped up as having haswell like IPC, with decent clock speeds, and promised to put pressure on intel to do better. So...I originally planned to upgrade the weekend ryzen dropped and to get like a 1600x or 1700. Instead, I took one look at reviews and I was like..."yeah, I'm getting the 7700k." 

The fact is...for me....as a gamer...AMD bombed again. While Ryzen had nice synthetics and impressive core count, their architecture just...was not great at gaming. I didn't want to buy a 7600k and be stuck with 4 cores in 2017, only having a slightly better processor than i could've bought in 2011-2013, but I also didn't want to have AMD's new CPU with poor single thread performance in gaming. So I bit the bullet and paid top dollar on a 7700k build at the time. It was the best decision I could have made, but I always regretted how terrible my timing was here. While the 7700k was the one kaby lake processor that didn't age absolutely like milk, compared to what was to come in late 2017 onward, it was underwhelming. 

Still, ryzen wasn't much better.

Like, just to compare the CPUs at various price ranges:

 7700k vs 1700- The 1700 had poor single thread performance. Sure it had tons of cores but those cores were a good 30-40% worse than intel in gaming performance. Which was like bulldozer levels of performance deficits vs the intel equivalent. At that point, it doesnt matter if you have twice as many, they suck.

 7600k vs 1600- Here, AMD did pretty well. Intel being stuck on 4 core 4 thread in 2017 still made the 6 core 12 thread 1600 actually look attractive. While it still lost to the quad core in single thread heavy games, it had a lot of potential in the long term for multithreaded titles. 

7400/7500 vs 1400/1500x- Here, it was a wash. The 4 core 8 thread ryzen CPUs had more threads, but the single core oomph of the intel chips kinda sorta made them better choices. But at the end of the day, again, it was a wash. 

7350k vs 1400/1500- Yeah intel had an OCable i3 that cost as much as a locked i5 back then. it sucks. At this point the 7400/7500 were better choices outright, and the so were the ryzen chips

 7100/7300 vs 1200/1300x- Here, we had 2 core 4 threads vs 4 core 4 threads. Once again, it was kind of a wash, but at the same time, I'd probably give the edge to AMD here.

And if I went into HEDT territory:

6800k/6850k vs 1700x/1800x: For gaming, the intel chips were better, although honestly, given all these chips were slower than the 7700k, they werent ideal purchases either way. 

Late 2017/Early 2018- Intel 8th gen vs AMD 1st gen

 So, and this is why i regretted buying the 7700k, AMD pushing such a promising new CPU series lit a fire under intel to FINALLY upgrade their core counts, and here we got the CPUs that we should've had all along. 50% faster than kaby lake in multithread, these were far better value than kaby lake, and kinda made my 7700k look like crap within a year. Still, at least i didn't have a 7600k or worse...

 8700k vs 1700/1700x/1800x- The 7700k already beat the Ryzen 7 line at the time. The 8700k was like, "stop stop, it's already dead". 

8600k vs 1600x- Yeah you basically got 7700k level performance for i5 prices now, and once again, it just stomped AMD at the time

8400 vs 1600- Same song and dance. 

8350k vs 1500x- Yeah, here you had an i3 on par with a 7600k. And it kinda made the 1500x look kinda bad.

8100 vs 1300x- Again, not even a fair fight.

So at this point, AMD BTFOed, Intel ahead. 

Late 2018/early 2019- Intel 8th/9th gen vs Ryzen 2nd gen

 AMD struck back and released a 2nd gen ryzen which was a decent improvement over the first, but...it really couldn't compete with the intel coffee lake CPUs at the time for gaming. INtel's 14th nm was just too good. And while if The Ryzen 2000 series went up against kaby lake, I would've bought one....not vs coffee lake. Still, they deserve a participation trophy for trying.

As for intel 9th gen, it's just more 8th gen, barely any performance gains so I'm just gonna treat them the same. 

8700k/9700k vs 2700x- While the 2700x was very competitive with my 7700k, vs the 8700k, yeah, it just couldn't compete.

8600k/9600k vs 2700- The good thing about these AMD chips is that the cheaper ryzen 7 went up against the core i5, which was a more fair fight. At the same time, the 8600k just....still performed a bit better. Still, it was close. The 2700/2700x had a lot of potential long term to outperform the 8600k/9600k,  but...it just didn't in practice. By the time games used 8c/16t regularly enough to matter, both CPUs were obsolete. Kind of a cautionary tale with buying into the "moar coars" narrative. Sure, it might regain some footing long term but by then, you'll be looking to upgrade anyway and you'll have gotten more value out of higher single thread in the mean time. 

8400/9400 vs 2600/2600x- I still give the edge to intel. I do know some OCed and tuned the 2600x to slightly outperform the 8400/9400 in some situations, but all in all, for most buyers, the intel CPUs were a better value out of the box. 

8100/9100 vs 1600af- So, the 1600af was a rereleased 1600 based on zen+ that replaced the lower core count CPUs and it was a pretty decent value vs the i3s at the time. I mean, 6 cores 12 threads is gonna be better than 4 cores 4 threads by this point, especially given stuff like battlefield 5 and the upcoming COD warzone absolutely CHOKE on 4 threads.  

8100/9100 vs 1500x/2400g- Here it's more of a wash. AMD's 4 core 8 thread parts really werent that impressive, but again, having a quad core with no hyperthreading in 2017 or later was just...bad. Like, really, the low end at the time was just kinda bad in general and none of these parts aged well with how fast CPU technology was advancing now that we had competition in the market again. 

2019- Intel 9th gen vs Ryzen 3rd gen

So this is where the competition with Intel started heating up. 1st 2 gens of ryzen sucked. Like, I'm sorry, I know there's a lot of AMD fanboys out there that act like they were good, they werent. In single thread performance, AMD lagged behind intel a solid 20-40% depending on sku in that era, which negated any performance having more cores had in gaming. It was only when AMD offered a decent amount of cores and threads vs intel being too cheap to give you a decent amount for the era that AMD excelled. Again, think 6 core 12 thread CPUs vs 4 core 4 thread ones. Yuck. It took AMD offering 3x the threads just to make early ryzen attractive to buyers.

That changed a bit with zen 2. Here, AMD closed the gap enough where they were now "good enough." As we'll see with intel 10th gen, once core parity was achieved with AMD, intel still held their own, but assuming AMD operated at an advantage, they could do well assuming they were just close enough to intel to do well. And here, zen 2 did achieve parity with intel 14th nm on paper, in synthetics. In gaming, due to latency issues related to the architecture, they were still behind, but really, it was ALMOST there for AMD by this point. Anyway, let's look at the products:

9700k vs 3700x- Here you couldn't go wrong either way, but I'd probably bet on the SMT of the 3700x being better in the long term.

9400/9600k vs 3600/3600x- Ditto. Sure, intel still had that nominal single thread advantage, but SMT was nothing to sneeze at, and future thinking buyers would be better served with a 6 core 12 thread CPU than just a 6 core intel CPU. 

9100 vs 3100/3300x- So to discuss the 3300x for a minute. it was rare, but it did kind of have an advantage no other zen 2 CPU had at the time: it was actually monolithic meaning no latency. The core issue with AMD up to this point was their chiplet design introduced latency between cores that didn't exist on intel CPUs at the time, and this was a zen 2 chip that showed what zen 2 could do when not hamstrung by latency. It performed like a 7700k, which put it squarely more up against the 9400 and the like in performance, while being cheap AF. It was actually almost as good as a 3600x overall. But, this one existed in limited quantities, so it wasnt widespread.

The 3100 on the other hand, was a bit weaker as it still used chiplets held together by "infinity fabric" and  had the latency penalty as a result. It was arguably better than a 9100, and it was a decent product for its price, but yeah, kinda underwhelming given its cooler older brother existed and actually mopped the floor with intel in the low end market when it was available. 

Early 2020- Intel 10th gen vs AMD 3rd gen

Once again, intel came up ahead again. AMD and intel now matched each other core for core. And Intel comes out ahead for me. Again, looking at gaming. Still, it was a bit of a wash because of pricing at times.

10700k vs 3700x- Intel wins

10600k vs 3600x- Intel wins

10400 vs 3600- More of a wash due to the 10400 being lower clocked, but I'd still give a slight edge to intel

10100 vs 3300x- I'd give the edge to the 3300x, but otherwise, it's a wash

10100 vs 3100- Intel wins

So here, intel mostly won. But this is where the narrative starts to change.

Late 2020- Intel 10th gen vs AMD 3rd/5th gen

 So...remember the 3300x? What if AMD made their entire next lineup like that? Ya know, monolithic dies, no latency penalty. And let's throw in an insane IPC increase. Yeah, that's what AMD did here. And here, AMD took the lead in the market. 

10700k vs 5800x- AMD wins

10600k vs 5600x- AMD wins

10400 vs 3600x- It's a wash, but AMD maybe slightly more attractive given the 3600x is now an older chip sold cheaper

10100 vs 3100- Eh, give it to intel

But yeah, The ryzen 5000 series was super expensive at first, but it had the best single threaded performance. AMD just won here. Full stop. Intel was now behind.

Early 2021- Intel 11th gen vs AMD 5th gen

Intel, stop, what are you doing?! So, rocket lake was a failure. It was a sidegrade from 10th gen. It was better in some applications, worse in others, and it really wasnt worth buying. AMD 5th gen was though. Given this was a 10th gen repeat, I'll skip exact comparisons. 

Late 2021-Early 2022- Intel 12th gen vs AMD 5th gen

Intel did strike back with its 12th gen though. The 12th gen was very good, but also kind of weird. It had DDR4 and DDR5 configurations. It did away with the monolithic design that gave intel so much strength in gaming for so long in favor of adding e cores, or low powered cores that gave intel the ability to throw way more cores on a CPU than previously. Still, intel did achieve MASSIVE IPC and clock gains here, and while the CPUs were monstrous in heat and power consumption, they were actually pretty solid. I bought one myself cheaply at the end of 2023, getting the flagship 12900k in a $400 microcenter bundle. FOr reference, that's budget i5 money. Like $400 for a CPU, motherboard, AND RAM? That's a good deal. AMD had decent deals too but I wasn't particularly liking the stability of their new 7th gen processors at the time, so I played it safe though. But I digress, let's really look at it here at the time.

12700k/12900k vs 5800X3D- So....the 5000 series was a 1 2 punch for AMD. Not only did they have their 5000 series fix so many issues their previous CPUs did, but then they added a ton of cache on top of them which further mitigated the latency issues they historically had, which made them take off like rocket ships. And while the 12700k/12900k were excellent products with tons of cores and awesome gaming performance, they were WAY too expensive for their value. And AMD just moved in with the 5800X3D, which was a turbo charged 5800x with that extra cache I was just talking about that went blow to blow with the 12900k for far less money. And of course, it manhandled the 12700k too. 

12600k vs 5700x/5800x- So...how Intel does vs AMD here depends on whether you went with DDR4 vs DDR5 RAM. on DDR4, you were comparable with an AMD 5th gen CPU. On DDR5, which was prohibitively expensive at the time, Intel won. Still, given AM4 was very affordable, cost for cost, DDR4 is probably more comparable, especially as AMD reduced the prices of their processors to match intel. 

12400 vs 5600x- Another wash, given most people on intel went DDR4 at the time.

12100 vs 3600x- Eh, I'd go with stronger cores over more weaker ones so I'd go Intel here.

So all in all, at this point, it's a wash, but I'd still give it to AMD simply because their CPUs were more attractively priced and often offered better value. 

Late 2022- early 2023- Intel 12th/13th gen vs AMD 5th/7th gen 

So this is where we start getting into me planning my next build. I decided to target 5800X3D level performance given by christmas 2023 it was likely to become affordable, but still, before we get there, let's discuss the market. 

AMD was bifurcated between their cheaper AM4 CPUs, and their expensive AM5. The 7000 series AMD CPUs were newer and more powerful, with the 7700x matching the 5800X3D without 3D vcache, but it was very prohibitively expensive, which made the 5000 series a nice budget platform.

On the intel side, raptor lake looked promising, with the 13600k matching the 12900k and 5800X3D in gaming performance, and until the 7800X3D hit, honestly, both brands seemed to trade blows. Raptor lake was so good it dropped the price of alder lake 12th gen significantly. 5th gen was getting dirt cheap, and yeah, there was lots of competition all around. To go into it:

13700k vs 7700x- Eh, I'd go intel for the e cores, you had the same performance either way but then intel had like 8 extra mini cores with their CPU. 

13600k vs 5800X3D/7600x- Eh, its a tough one here. It really depends on the exact prices. Again, AM4 might be cheapest so the 5800X3D is a solid option. The 7600x was prohibitively expensive given you needed to spend $300 on a CPU, $200 for a motherboard, and $200 on RAM at the time as it forced you to use DDR5. So...13600k vs any of those, it was like....okay I'd probably take it over a 7600x, which seemed like a poor value at the time since 6c/12t is kinda the minimum at this point anyway. But at the same time, the 5800X3D might be cheaper than the 13600k. Again, it's a wash.

13500 vs 5700x/5800x- Eh the 13500 was a weird product and was kinda overpriced, but it was better than the 5700x/5800x IMO.

12600k/13400 vs 5700x/5800x- This is more appropriate of a comparison, and it really depended on what was cheaper. So it's a wash, especially on DDR4 which most budget buyers would still buy.

12400 vs 5600x- Wash

12100 vs 5500- 12100 all the way. Again, AMD just selling 6 cores with weak architecture while intel's selling quad cores with decent architecture. And yes, they have hyperthreading so they're not bad. 

Late 2023/early 2024- Intel 12th-14th gen vs AMD 5th/7th gen

So this is when I pulled the trigger on a build. Before I go into more objective comaprisons, I'll say this. I got my build from microcenter, they had very good deals you couldnt get elsewhere and i got crap for WAY cheaper than you could get ANYWHERE else. I'll go into my own debates later on in this section, but to just paint the picture of how things were at this time:

13700k/14700k vs 7800X3D- The 7800X3D had, and still had, unrivaled dominance performance wise. it was quite expensive, comparable to an i7 CPU around $400ish at the time, but it was well worth it for most who bought. 

As for me, I could've gone for this tier at microcenter for $500 for a whole bundle. I was highly tempted, but I didn't because the bundle in question had sketchy reviews at the time due to the RAM/motherboard combos. AM5 was very twitchy at launch and is still twitchy today, and I was turned off. To be fair, not long after this it turned out raptor lake developed massive issues with voltage frying CPUs and oxidation in the manufacturing process so a lot of people got burned far worse on the 13th/14th gen at the time, but yeah. 2023, you had tons of options and amazing deals, but if you bought the wrong products from either company, you'd get burned. Intel raptor lake customers got it worst, there's no excuse for that level of widespread issues, but let's be real, AMD had its own, more minor issues too. 

 I ended up going the next tier down and saved $100 anyway.

12900k/13600k vs 7700x- Eh the 12900k was ONLY worth buying in microcenter, but it is the same tier of product as the above CPUs in performance, so eh...yeah. Honestly, I went intel, again, in part due to issues with microcenter combos, but also, intel just had more cores. Yeah yeah yeah, AMD has more futureproof sockets, but given how twitchy their new socket seemed to be, I really didnt wanna risk getting a lemon here.

12900k actually ended up being a quite good purchase. It was one of the few CPUs on a mature platform that had the kinks worked out, AND it had solid mid range performance. This is my daily driver. 

Vs 13600k, if you could get that cheaper, it was also quite good, but uh...13th gen had issues, just a heads up on that...

7700x just...lacks ecores. Just as powerful as the other processors here give or take, maybe even a little better in single thread, but yeah, we're talking like a 10% gap at most here. It was kind of a middling product at this point between the 7800X3D on the one hand, and discounted intel stuff. 

12700k./13500 vs 5700X3D/7600x-  Sure, intel had more cores and threads here, but the 5700X3D was a 5800X3D but slightly slower and a whole lot cheaper. It kind of manhandled intel CPUs. The 7600x was also decent with the right discounts, but I really felt like buying into AM5 given its prices if youre budget tier was just...no. Too expensive. 

So yeah it kinda depends on prices, but I lean toward AMD

12600k/13400 vs 5700x/5800x- Same debate, still a wash

12400 vs 5600x- Again, a wash

12100 vs 5500- Intel again

So yeah, it's very competitive here. Given the raptor lake debacle being just so terribly bad it kinda tilts the value discussion to AMD here, yeah, I'd probably go AMD mostly, but at the same time, I did buy intel in my own situation, so...

Again, not everyone has a microcenter in reasonable driving distance, so..

 2024-2025- Intel 12th gen-"2nd gen" vs AMD 5th/7th/9th gen  

So this is where we get to the modern day. 5th gen chips are still cheap but increasingly bad value as AM5 prices come down, intel CPUs are also decent options. Although their newest core ultra 200 series is hot garbage. They pulled an AMD. They created a new architecture, it has horribly latency penalties, its super expensive, and their chips perform like my 12900k, which I've owned for 1.5 years, but is going on 4 as a chip. I have to say, that said, the 12900k is aging well, I mean, the 7700k was outdone by the 3300x within 3 years and the 10100 was almost as strong as it. Here I got a decent chip that's still comparable to most modern intel flagships. 

AMD released the 9000 series, but outside of the X3D line, which has gotten insanely expensive due to high demand and AMD arguably limiting production of its older 7800X3D, very few gains were had. So we're stagnating. Yay...

7800X3D-9800X3D vs 14900k/265k/285k- Older 12th-14th gen is now quite cheap with even the 24 core 13900k/14900k being around $400-500 now. The 7800X3D and 9800X3D also cost around that much. Obviously, for gaming, the AMD chips win. it's not a contest. Intel has ZERO answer for X3D, which is why everyone dunks on them. However, this is only the highest tier of performance, and we're talking $400-500 CPUs here so...yeah. 

Core ultra is especially bad. Like, dont even buy them. It's basically intel's bulldozer moment. They literally perform like my 12900k due to horrible latency and regressed from the 13th/14th gen in gaming. And they're very overpriced. 

So...AMD wins here, easily...

13700k/14700k/245k vs 7700x/9700x- However, outside of the X3D range, intel is still quite competitive, which is why I'm not anti intel. Sure, avoid the 245k like the plague, but the 13700k/14700k are still decent CPUs, and intel allegedly fixed their voltage issues assuming you update the bios. So you get more cores than AMD here. But yeah, the 7700x/9700x are a more stable product at this point, although Im still under the impression stability issues do exist on AM5 as well...

So...it's a wash I guess? Like, there's pros and cons either way.

13600k/14600k vs 7600x/9600x- Honestly, I really cant justify a 6 core 12 thread chip in 2025. The e cores make intel chips far more well rounded IMO. 

12700k vs 7500f/5700X3D- AM4 isnt really worth buying at this point as its getting more expensive. I guess. The 7500f is a cheaper 7600x, it can be an entry level CPU for AM5. The 12700k is still a decent budget option though.

12600k/13400/14400 vs 5700x- The eternal debate rages and it's still a wash. 

12400 vs 5600x- Nowadays I find the 12400 cheaper so I'd get that.

12100/13100/14100 vs 5500- Just get the quad core, bro.

Conclusion

So...what can we say about the state of the CPU market? Well, it's weird. Rather than having new product lines fully replace old ones, AMD seems to be just letting their older CPUs at discount fill up the lower end, leading to lots of cheaper 5000 series and even 7000 series CPUs by this point. Intel does release new CPUs, but its very much the same, with 12th and even 13th/14th gen chips flooding the low end and midrange of the market. This leads to lots of competition and amazing deals. 

While AMD definitely holds the edge at the high end with their X3D CPUs and intel REALLY doesnt have an answer for those, for anything below that, both companies are solid. i bought a 12900k myself, but I wouldnt NORMALLY recommend it outside of the microcenter combos. It's often very overpriced for what it offers (like 13700k/14700k type pricing while giving 13600k type performance), and yeah. It is hot, it is energy heavy. But at the same time, it's quite competent. UNlike GPUs, the CPU market is amazing right now. 

Intel IS losing its grip on dominance. As we saw, they started out way ahead, they kinda stagnated while AMD continued to improve, and then they kinda reached parity with AMD. Then AMD is knocking them out with X3D, while they're dealing with scandals like the 13th/14th gen voltage debacle, and the core ultra series kinda sucks, so yeah, it's not good to be intel right now. AMD definitely has the upper hand, and is well positioned for the future. Still, again, unless youre going for gaming performance at the high end, and by high end, I mean, $450 for a CPU or so, intel is still decent. Just avoid ultra and buy a cheaper 12th-14th gen CPU. Theyre still good. Although...make sure you update your BIOs if you buy a 13th/14th gen K series CPU. 

So...yeah. I guess AMD is better these days. Still, again, I think people overexaggerate issues, and I myself bought intel and am happy with it...so...yeah. Again, if youre not in the market for a 7800X3D/9800X3D, intel and AMD are both pretty solid. AMD has a more futureproof socket, Intel has more cores. Quite frankly, I think my 12900k is going to remain relevant for quite a while and I cant see myself upgrading for several more years. So yeah.  

Why I don't buy this Iran war thing

 So, the war drums are beating for war with Iran, and consent for the idea is being manufactured in the corporate media. Me? I'm not so hot on the idea. I've seen this all before, history is repeating itself, and I'm here to warn you guys about it.

 On september 11th 2001, the US was attacked by terrorists. This caused George W. Bush, and the american public in general, go to haywire and attack Afghanistan. The idea was that we were gonna get the people responsible, particularly Osama Bin Laden, and we were gonna bring him to justice. So we went in, spent 10 years trying to find the guy, killed him, and spent another 10 screwing around "nation building" before leaving in 2021 and then seeing the Taliban immediately take over again. Honestly, we own this one. It was a decision that made sense at the time, but it didn't age well in retrospect.

But then, in 2003, still riding high off of our bloodlust after 9/11, George W. Bush said that we had to invade Iraq. he said that they were working on weapons of mass destruction, probably nukes, and that he needed to be stopped now. The Bush administration made their case before the UN, with fancy satellite photos showing lines of trucks with...something in them, who knows what with grainy footage, and that this was them making nukes, and we had to go in and stop them. Much of the international community, barring the UK and a few others, were skeptical of this. Bush had this "you're with us or youre with the terrorists" mentality and went in any way, bashing our European allies for refusing to back us up with blah blah blah if it werent for us the nazis would've won WWII and that sort of thing.

Anyway, the war drums in the media beat for this war with Iraq. And being a naive teenager who thought America was unequivocally the good guy, and myself riding high on blood lust after 9/11 and in a highly conservative environment at the time, I bought into it.

Anyway, we invaded, no WMDs were found, we looked like idiots. "Bush lied, people died", as the moveon.org protesters chanted. We ended up wasting thousands of american lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and trillions of dollars on a war that we didnt need to fight. And when the bloodlust finally broke in Bush's second term, his approval tanked, and Obama won overwhelming in 2008. Obama got us out of Iraq, only for ISIS to take over in its place, he killed Bin Laden, although didn't do much to get us out, just kept trying to stabilize the situation, and we didnt get out until the recent Biden administration, who closed that chapter of American history, and who opened up the new one where Israel and Ukraine are the new battlegrounds of the world. Biden himself seemed to be interested in defending western values and liberal democracy as he seen it. Trump...is not. 

However, despite the narrative that Trump is "America first" and "anti war", he really isn't. He's enabling Israel's worst impulses and their genocidal agenda. And now...they wanna attack iran. Which, because we're kinda just doing what they want and are enabling them, means this is our problem too.

Except, I dont view this as our problem. This is israel's problem, and if Israel wants to pick a fight with Iran, they can go it alone for all I care. I'm tired of enabling Netanyahu here.

 Netanyahu is like super Bush. I said it after October 7th in a sense. October 7th 2023 was like Israeli 9/11. Terrorists attacked, it caused Netanyahu, himself governing like a Bush style neocon, to respond, his abused the trust and goodwill of the international community by using this retaliation as an excuse to commit genocide, the good will of a lot of people has run out, including myself, and now that he's mopping up on Gaza, completely unfettered by the Trump administration who isn't just enabling netanyahu but is complicit in the sense that Trump fricking has plans to turn gaza into a gaudy middle eastern version of Atlantic city, he's turning his sights to iran, once again claiming that Iran is working on WMDs and that we need to attack now. 

 Slow down, there, champ, I don't buy this. because I've heard this all before. Remember Iraq back in 2003? Yeah. This feels like that again. We gotta go in now, we gotta attack, here's a flimsy pretext, just trust us, bro, blah blah blah. Israel is the one who wants to do this. Admittedly, they do have national security concerns there, and a nuclear Iran is something they fear because they fear they'll use nukes on Israel. BUT...again, this isn't our fight, and im sick and tired of the US falling on its sword for Israel. This isn't our fight. I dont want to see Americans going into Iran like we did Iraq and Afghanistan and do regime change, find out there were no nukes, and then spend the next 10-20 years trying to nation build, only for the second we leave some other extremist group takes over again. No. I'd rather not waste money.

We had a deal with these guys under Obama. Trump tore it up. And now they dont trust us, because we went back on OUR word. We escalated hostilities. And now Israel is needlessly escalating them too. Again, this isn't our fight. I dont want to see our guys go in and get harmed over Netanyahu's war here. And I really dont want anything to do with this. Honestly, after the gaza thing, Netanyahu has burned through any goodwill I had toward Israel, and my honest take is we should cut them off and focus on our own crap. I believe we should support Ukraine, yes, but Israel? Screw Israel at this point. If they wanna do this, they can do it on their own. But they won't. Because the only reason israel is feeling so confident is because they know that they can just rope us into their nonsense and we'll just mindlessly back them up. No. My support for Israel is conditional, and the US has to push back against them and say NO! This isn't our fight. You cant just continue to abuse our relationship like this. We want nothing to do with this.

And that's my stance. I want nothing to do with this one. Again, my honest opinion on Israel is the US should cut them off yesterday (in other words, effective immediately and we should've done it sooner). Let's see how confident they'll be when they don't have the world's greatest superpower who makes the world's worst military parades to back them up. And yes, I'm poking fun at Trump's pathetic birthday bash again. But I digress. 

The crowds against Trump vs the crowds for Trump

 So...today, two separate events are going on. There's widespread "no kings" demonstrations against him, and also, a military parade in his honor. While I dont have official numbers, it looks like the crowds that turned out against him must be bigger than the crowds that turned out for him. Oof. That must hurt his ego. Ya know what? GOOD! No Kings. This is America. 

The military parade looks pathetic. Only weak dictatorial leaders like that stuff. Ya know, like Putin, or Stalin, or Hitler. But then again, that's the vibe he's going for here. Let's not pretend any differently.  Again, this is America. We normally don't do this crap. That's why his handlers stopped it from happening in his first term. Btw, Elon, found your government waste right here! What, no one on the right cares? Imagine that. Only money spent on helping people is government waste in their eyes. 

So...what, can we not say bad things about Trump on the internet any more?

 So, this was interesting. I just had my post about how bad things are bad deleted. It got moderated for vague reasons that were not stated. I couldnt figure out what I did wrong, and I decided to appeal the post any way. Anyway, it's back and and the post was reinstated immediately, but I still found this behavior concerning. 

As we know, we live in dangerous times. We live in an era where the Trump administration is trying to turn us into an authoritarian state, and to crack down on any criticism of him. One possible way to crack down on criticism would be, possibly, to falsely report posts of mine in hopes to get them overturned. Or, possibly, it got taken down because i had certain key words in it that triggered things, given I was critical of ICE arresting and deporting people, that Trump was basically escalating the situation in hopes that he can provoke a response that would justify the use of violence on his end. And I also compared him to Hitler. Idk if any of this was seen as against TOS, to my knowledge, it's not. And even more so, I feel like my points are well within my 1st amendment rights and warranted.

Heck, to explain my views in more detail, I will.

ICE- Okay, look. Previously on this blog, I pointed out that that I'm not necessarily against deporting illegal immigrants. However, I think it should be done humanely, and with due process and certain safeguards in place. Trump isn't doing that. He's just extrajudicially arresting people and ending them to el salvador with no due process. In Los Angeles, the recent conflicts started when ICE raided a home depot looking for illegal immigrants to deport. These are just honest people looking for honest work, applying for jobs, and we're deporting these guys. This is also why I kinda make third reich comparisons. people dont like talking about nazis sometimes and that can tread on TOS on some sites as it's considered uncouth or whatever, but I don't make the comparison lightly. The nazis didn't start with death camps. They started with deportations. They started with incidents of violence like the night of broken glass. They escalated to that eventually, after years of being in power. Right now is more like 1933-1934 on the timeline. But it is concerning and we must call out this stuff early. After all. The path to fascism is lined with people telling us we're overreacting. 

Again, I'm not against deporting illegal immigrants even. I just think that it should be done with more safeguards in place. Constitutional protections, due process, maybe target actual criminals and not just honest guys looking for work. That sort of thing. 

The Los Angeles protests- I barely mentioned the protests at all. Obviously, I'm not going to advocate for violence. That is against TOS and also against my own philosophy on these things. I believe protest is legal under the first amendment, but Trump is escalating the situation, sending in the national guard and the marines, threatening to arrest Gavin Newsom for not playing along with his stuff. Again, this stuff is scary. My criticisms are with the Trump administration here. I'm kind of neutral on protests themselves. I believe people have a first amendment right to assembly, but violence isn't okay. Some people are being violent and destroying property and they should be arrested for that. But...at the same time, the police and especially the armed forces shouldn't be nationalized to do trump's bidding. Trump IS provoking confrontation, and I believe he wants it to be violent. He has talked about wanting to shoot protesters in the past. That's how he sees protesters. Because, again, he's an authoritarian. 

On Trump being a wannabe Hitler- Uh, this isn't controversial. The dude is basically running his playbook. He's a very authoritarian figure who has a lot of the same tendencies as someone like Hitler. And in his second term, he's operating with very few guard rails and making plays that are clearly trying to bend and break our democracy to his will. As someone who has literally studied political science, and is well aware of the concept of "fake democracies", ie, states that are democratic on paper but functionally operate as one party states that try to crush the competition, eh....Trump is trying to take us in that direction. He's trying to make plays to break our democracy. He's trying to turn us into a one party state like Russia is today or Germany was in the 1930s. This does not often happen in one fall swoop, but as a death by a thousand cuts (although some blows are more critical than others). 

Heck, the fact that me pointing out that Trump does bad things getting my post moderated and deleted concerns me. Is blogger a safe place to discuss stuff? Is someone trying to intimidate me? Like "hey we're watching you, better watch what you say about dear leader"? That's scary crap. Or again, it could just be that it was flagged because of certain key words. Either way, I find this whole incident very unsettling and concerning. Really, are we not allowed to say bad things about Trump any more on the internet? Are internet crackdowns next? Is Trump gonna arrest people for speaking out against him? Again, this is scary crap. Anyway, I did not like that kind of incident and hope it does not happen again.  

EDIT: I just realized another thing that could have triggered it was criticizing Israel, which is a touchy topic right now. Look. I was originally sympathetic to Israel after October 7th. I had deep and detailed discussions on here about Israel and their actions in their war on Gaza. I discussed their history, and was largely sympathetic to their side of the conflict, I discussed how in war some level of collateral damage is inevitable, and I've been deeply critical of the pro palestine point of view. 

HOWEVER, as the war has dragged on, it has become increasingly apparent that Israel has not been engaging in good faith, and that their behavior in gaza qualifies as a genocide. This is especially apparent as we transition to the Trump administration and Trump enabled their worst impulses. 

I'm also deeply concerned about the amount of influence Israel has over the US government and how it is influencing our foreign policy and trying to use the trump administration to engage in...crack downs on free speech. This should be unacceptable in a democratic republic like ours. Sorry, not sorry. 

And now Israel is attacking Iran. And of course, the US is gonna likely back them up, putting our troops in danger, because THEY decided to start a war. And some are going to use the war as an opportunity to further crack down on speech against Israel. I remember after 9/11, that the attack was used to justify a lot of authoritarian stuff that never should've happened like invading Iraq, the patriot act, etc. And honestly? I think that we need to be critical from day 1 here to stop this narrative from taking off that this is our war. It isn't. And quite frankly, I think the US should drop israel like a hot potato and stop supporting them. I dont like them meddling with our politics. i dont like us being pushed into wars at their behest. Israel is very clearly taking advantage of our good will toward them and we shouldnt stand for it. Cut them off and let them fend for themselves if they wanna do stupid and illegal (in the eyes of international law) crap. As far as im concerned, they're no longer an upstanding member of the liberal democratic community, but a rogue state flouting the rules because we let them get away with it.  

Discussing abundence liberalism and why it's a load of crap

 I kinda sorta addressed this before, but I wanna address it again on its own. Abundence liberalism is a common talking point we're seeing the centrist democrats push as they pivot post loss in 2024, and it's nonsense. It's just neoliberal politic rebranded. 

So...what is it exactly? It's the idea that the real problem with the economy is supply shortages making eveything expensive, and if we want to make things affordable for Americans, we need to engage in a form of "supply side" economics to do it. This normally involves deregulating the economy. 

Is it valid? Well, in one specific market, yes, otherwise no. Housing is where abundence liberalism actually would work. The reason housing is so expensive is post COVID, as people wanna live alone more, and our population grows, and as everyone crowds into massive cities where we can obviously only fit so many people in it, but more people than we can fit wants to live there, abundance liberalism has a point. Deregulating zoning is good. Denser housing developments is good. More people per square mile is good. That's where this abundance liberalism actually works.

However, other than that, it's a bunch of crap. Here's the thing. Centrist liberals dont wanna address the real hard questions with the economy. THey dont wanna address income and wealth inequality. They dont wanna address the concentration of wealth. And when it comes to fixing market dynamics they think supply side economics is the solution. Ya know, like a republican would. Because these guys are republican lites. Let's face it.

In reality, healthcare is not an issue of shortages. It's an issue of the insurance companies taking people for everything that they've gotten. But they dont wanna challenge the insurance companies or end the high profit gravy train that is healthcare with actual universal healthcare, so they wanna talk about tweaking the ACA and using abundence to say we need more healthcare. Higher supply means lower prices in theory, but not if the problem is people gatekeeping an essential resource for profit. Do we really think that we need insulin to be like hundreds of dollars? it doesnt. Jonas Salk sold the patent for it for $1 because he wanted to help humanity, and it was cheap AF to manufacture. Medical companies charge insane amounts because they can. COVID vaccine. For all the "well these guys need to recoup the costs of development", WE, the TAXPAYERS funded that with operation warp speed. But now it costs $150 to get a dose without insurance because F U some company needs to profit. These guys make money by holding the system hostage and knowing you'll pay insane money.

Education. People wanna push abundance with education. However, once again, the reason the price is high is because they know people will pay it. If anything student loans made it worse by guaranteeing that people would go tens of thousands in debt for an education. Colleges overinvested into their campuses building new buildings they didnt need, and acquiring more buildings for more dorms, and if anything the college I went to and am indebted to is struggling to stay in business because apparently post COVID a lot fewer people WANNA go to college because of the cost and now they're in debt from overexpanding that they cant bring enough people in to make a profit. Like everything else overpriced im discusssing lately, this is a self inflicted blow caused by a business model based on pure greed. It isnt working out for them. Will that mean lower prices for us? No, if anything stuff will go out of business and then the price will remain high. Same with housing to an extent, same with healthcare. A lot of companies would rather keep prices high to condition consumers to pay more than to lower their prices, as economic models would anticipate. We're more likely gonna see people go out of business and then the supply issue correcting in a way to keep the prices high, than we are to see stuff be affordable.

Abundance can only go so far. Even in housing, that is the case. Remember the 2010s and how the banks were keeping entire neighborhoods of houses off the market to keep prices high? Yeah, they did that. That's why we had more homes than homeless people. We could see people in homes, but if we put them up in homes, then that would...*gasp*, lower prices, and lead to lower profit margins. ANd we cant have that, can we?

This is also why companies like say, dunkin donuts would rather throw out tons of donuts at the end of the night than see them donated, or to see employees go home with a few. Nope. Gotta destroy excess supply to keep prices up. As such, any talk of increasing supply to lower prices is just nonsense. That's how capitalism works.

For decades, we've had enough. We've had enough food. We've had enough homes, enough healthcare, enough education, to go around. We made it happen. With the right government policies and investments, we can make it happen. We have K-12 for all. We can have college for all. We can ensure everyone has healthcare through at least a public option, if not single payer healthcare. We can ensure everyone has a home...by making the government build more homes and ensuring people arent as tied to location in terms of where they can afford to lve. We can give people a UBI to ensure they can afford enough food and other basics to live. We can do this, through the policies that I support. Sure, it requires the federal government raising taxes massively, especially on the wealthy, to make it happen. Sure, it requires massive wealth and income redistribution. And the reason the democrats dont wanna do it is because they dont wanna piss the wealthy off. They wanna appeal to and appease them. They literally threw working class voters overboard to win over wealthy suburbanites. And this is why they keep losing to trump. Working class voters are voting republican, because the dems dont do F all to fix their problems, because they're too busy being moderate republicans on the economy. 

Again, read poverty amid plenty, the american paradox. We have enough. It's not a problem of not having enough. It's not really a scarcity problem for the most part. it's a distribution problem. Capitalism sucks at distributing resources. The problem reason for this is we insist on everyone working for a living and employers not wanting to pay people. And then private entities in the most expensive industries gatekeep resources for profit. So...to solve the problems with the economy, we need a UBI, we need universal healthcare through at minimum a public option, we need free college through a public option, and we do need to increase the housing supply, yes, that's half of it, but we also need to crack down on profiteering there too. Ya know? We need a whole new New Deal here. We need to go full progressive. These "abundance" type people are just neoliberals who wanna once again ignore the real issues and channel our energy into ineffective solutions that wont do F all to fix the problems. And then they're gonna lose to trump or his successors again, because no one fricking likes them. 

So let's cut the crap. These guys are the past, they need to get out of the way. They need to give up. These third wayers need to stop controlling the democratic party and imposing their BS on us. They're worthless political professionals who dont wanna do F all to solve real problems and who only exist as a drain on the system, basically telling us we gotta settle for them to avoid the fascists, or else we get the fascists. Im sick of it. These guys keep losing, they suck, no one likes them, just stop so people with actual solutions can come in and fix things instead. 

Reminder: bad things are bad

 So...remember how I mentioned hating discussing Trump because it feels like I'm just saying that stuff is bad and it should be obvious? Well, now we're gonna see why.

Yes yes, I've been following the Los Angeles thing. ICE is bad. They do bad things. This isn't controversial. Trump sendng troops in is bad. He's trying to provoke a confrontation to escalate the use of force, shoot protesters, declare martial law. A senator getting arrested at Kristi Noem's speech is bad. Wtf America? And now Israel is attacking Iran. Which is bad.

Trump administration is bad. We know trump administration is bad. This is comic book villain stuff. He's basically wannabe hitler. He's bad. Bad bad bad. Let's get it out of our system.

Im writing this because I feel like I should say something about all the bad stuff that's going on, but I can't really say much about it other than it being bad, and it being self evident. Did I mention that trump is bad? 

Why I don't buy "but inflation" on technology related purchases

 So, I had someone today tell me how ignorant I was for "not believing inflation exists" or something when I said I don't buy inflation arguments on why modern tech is so expensive. And I don't buy them. I believe way too many people who themselves are well off (upper middle class yuppie types with seemingly bottomless disposable incomes) like to make these arguments to justify higher prices, when in reality they're just justifying the higher prices to themselves and stroking their own egos. There's a real keeping up with the Joneses thing among those people and for them, being able to buy expensive products is a status symbol. Ya know, like being able to buy that overpriced designer clothing from the mall. A lot of these social circles have a real 'you're part of the in group" mentality if you can afford it, and if you can't well "what, are you poor?" It's a toxic mindset. But yeah these guys dominate online discussions and seem to love to be free market fundamentalists who love to justify why everyone should buy overpriced stuff and not complain about prices.

However, I don't buy into that mindset. First of all, I come from a poorer area of the country where those attitudes are less prevalent. Second, I'm autistic and don't give a crap about your stupid social norms. So for me, the whole exclusionary "if you poor boy just say so" arguments dont work on me. Yes, I'm "poor boy", now STFU and lower the prices you weirdo hypercapitalist bootlicker.  

Anyway, before I begin, I want to say that I'm not arguing that inflation doesn't exist. It obviously does. However, I do think tech is generally an industry that probably shouldn't experience it much. I'll discuss why in my points itself. Let's start with that one.

 1) Technology is often DEFLATIONARY

  Technology often starts expensive and gets cheaper over time. The first TVs cost thousands of dollars in today's money, had poor picture, and were black and white. Now I can go to any department store and walk out with a decent sized LCD one for under $100.

GPUs used to start out expensive, but they'd get cheaper fast. A $500 GPU one year would be replace by a midrange $250 one the next, and the next, it's a $100 entry level one. That used to be a thing for a while. 

Consoles also used to start out expensive. I admit, a $300-400 MSRP isnt uncommon for a console in today's money, but after a year or two, you'd be able to get it far cheaper. Games used to drop in price too. I used to buy most of my games second hand at deep discounts back in the 90s and early 2000s. This stuff DEPRECIATED IN VALUE. And it happened fast. 

This isn't happening any more. The switch 1 cost $300 in 2017 and $300 in 2025. And now the switch 2 is $450. GPUs are stagnating and not dropping in price a ton either. Something like a 6600 should be like entry level right now, and I dont mean entry level at $200. I mean entry level at like $100. It's 2 generations old. And things used to progress so fast that it would get down to entry level FAST. A 4 year old card that was $300 on day 1 should be sub $100 within a few years. We discussed this with the game cube too. That started out at $200, went down to $100. Old games would drop in price. A game that's like 4 years old eventually would be available in a bargain bin for like $8. It doesnt matter if it launched at $50, 60, even 70. Again, games dropped in price HARD. And quite frankly, it was cartridges that made the cost so high in the first place. That's why games went DOWN to $50 in gen 6. 

I'm not saying there isnt going to inevitably be a nominal amount of inflation that happens regardless, but that happens slow and is relatively modest. Which brings me to the next point.

2) The inflation timeline doesnt make sense

So, we all know that in 2021-2023 we had a rather large inflationary wave. However, with GPUs, Nvidia raised their prices as early as 2018 with the 2000 series. Overnight, all tiers of products got bumped up an entire price tier wise. 60 cards costs what 70 cards used to cost. 70 cards cost what 80 cads used to cost. 80 cards cost what 80 ti/90 cards used to cost, and 80 ti cards cost what TITANS used to cost. Nvidia did that. Why? Because they could. They had the market share. They had the new tech. They could get away with it. Nvidia has always been like this. They tried this in 2008-2009 with the GTX 200 series. Then AMD came back swinging with the 4000/5000 series at the time and corrected the market. 

Let's face it. Most of the current inflation is NOT necessary. It's NOT justified. With GPUs its even worse, as we saw, not only are we getting inflation in price tiers, we're getting SHRINKFLATION too. 

Compare to the CPU market. The CPU market had something similar happen in 2011-2017. Except it wasn't actually inflation, but shrinkflation. INtel had dominance. AMD collapsed after they released bulldozer and stopped making CPUs and intel just kept releasing quad cores every year while continuing to reduce the die size. Still, CPUs remained cheap. Even after AMD came back with ryzen and things progressed again, and even as CPU prices did rise a bit, they didnt rise like GPU prices did. And they still offer cheap options. If you wanted to, you can get like a Ryzen 5600 for like $130 today, or a 12100f or even 12400f for like $100. Compare this to GPUs. Here, we see the prices bumped up a whole tier compared to what they used to be, and THEN they shrinkflation things ANOTHER tier. And then the entire low end market is decimated as they stop releasing true entry level gpus. So the entire budget market is destroyed. $200 is the bare minimum for entry, and then games require those $200 GPUs just to run. 

It's broken. And this is all corporate greed. Nvidia is doing this because they can. 

Now, let's talk about the switch 2 too. Their previous handheld was $300, now its STILL $300, and their NEW ONE is $450. Their 2017 launch games are STILL $60, and their new ones are $80. That's a nintendo problem. 

And on the switch 2, "but but, its a solid value for the price". Yeah, but wanna know why? Instead of making a true handheld, they made a STEAM DECK. They made a large, overpowered, oversized handheld with limited portability and a high price tag. Nintendo never did that in the past. They made cheaper hardware that was more portable and accessible to the masses. People act like they HAD to make a $450 handheld. No...just like they took the nvidia shield at the time, which was, btw, a $300 gaming tablet tablet back in the day, and turned it into a $300 console, they could've looked at the mobile market again and based their own successor on say, a retroid pocket 5, or razer edge, or odin 2. The fact that they decided, for the first time in 20 years, to compete with the bigger beefier consoles is THEIR decision. They didnt HAVE to make it like that. But you know what? This is what they're doing. And this is what nvidia is doing too. They're conditioning consumers with being okay with paying more for things. And you people are actually defending them for it. They're screwing you, and you're trying to gaslight me into thinking this is necessary.

"But but moores law is slowing down, we have to make stuff more expensive." N you dont. You could just shrinkflation things like intel did in 2011-2017 and stagnate a bit. Do what progress you can for the price, but also keep the price down. People are CHOOSING to go all out. Same with software developers. Its okay if games dont progress graphically at the same rate as they did in the past. Really. It stopped mattering to me half way through gen 8. Youre never ever going to have another N64 moment again where graphical improvements are so groundbreaking that it revolutionizes gaming. And that's okay. It's a mature technology. If we cant keep progressing forever due to hardware limitations, that's okay. I'd rather have longer lasting console gens and longer lasting hardware at this point. It's better on the pocketbook. What i find unreasonable is asking consumers to pay more for stuff because you decided on a business model that quite frankly isnt sustainable and is exclusionary to your more budget oriented customers.

3) Most 2020s inflation is greed anyway

Heres the big reason im dismissive of inflation arguments in the 2020s. Most inflation isn't legit inflation. As in, it's not due to rising costs. Historically, most inflation in the past was due to supply chain issues or labor costs. 2020s inflation was what we call "greedflation" where companies just decided to all raise their prices post covid to see what they could get away with. So...it's greed. They raise prices then suddenly their profits are higher than ever. It aint going to wages. At least then it would be evening out. Instead, workers and customers are being squeezed for more money, and they're not seeing more money to some extent. Admittedly wages are a bit higher now than they were pre covid, but still. Data is data. We discussed this before on this blog. Again, it's greedflation. So...stop giving corporations a free pass?

What I really hate are people who just act like "well you SHOULD be okay with paying more?" Screw off. I'm NOT. And no sane person should be. The reason most of the current inflation is happening is because market forces are stacked in favor of the sellers and they're just raising prices and pushing to see what they can get away with. And they're getting away with it. because you people are stupid and letting them get away with it. Rather than calling stuff out, youre just being annoying contrarians like "well ackshully you SHOULD be okay with spending more" and making weird comparisons like what video games cost in the 90s to justify your decisions. 

But...as an educated consumer who understands what's going on. I dont buy it. I'm sorry. I dont believe that gaming has to be so expensive in the 2020s. it is so because we live in an oligopoly that strays into being a full on MONOpoly at times. Nintendo is able to get away with their stuff because IP laws give them exclusivity copy right wise over their franchises and you cant buy them elsewhere. Nvidia can get away with stuff because they have 90% of the GPU market share. What are you gonna do, say no? They know youre not gonna say no, and they're betting youre not gonna say no. And when you dont say no, youre proving them right. So congrats on raising the prices of goods for everyone and pricing people like me out of the market by having no impulse control and then mindlessly defending this stuff on the internet. Youre ruining it for everyone. Sorry. Not sorry.