Why I'm not really for "Medicare for All" these days

 So....let's discuss my evolution on Medicare for All. 

First, I was a conservative. I was opposed to any government healthcare, believing all the horror stories about how the government is gonna institute death panels and it's SO much worse than the free market. 

Obviously, that was a bunch of nonsense. And Obama care was actually WAY too moderate of a proposal. It didn't fix the issues. it tried to expand coverage but the approach was so fragmented and flawed it never solved the problems. To this day, millions lack health insurance, healthcare is prohibitively expensive, trying to mandate all employees get healthcare just led to the proliferation of part time jobs to bypass those regulations, and many states refused to expand medicaid at all and now Mike Johnson is rolling back those protections. The ACA approach isn't working, and as I shifted away from the right to the left, and started looking at the problems with healthcare, I quickly supported medicare for all. 

El Sayed, the Michigan guy I just discussed, is actually the strongest voices to make the case for it, literally writing a book on it. And I do wanna elevate his voice here. But to discuss my own views on it, the market is so fundamentally broken that a market based approach to healthcare is not gonna fix the problems. The profit motive and the structure of markets just dont allow for an affordable healthcare system that works for the people to flourish. When you commoditize healthcare, you're basically saying "your money or your life" and people will pay exorbitant sums of money to get care, leading to the issues we have today. Even more, our work based culture insists on tying employment to jobs, which has been a failure, since, as the ACA has shown, employers REALLY dont wanna pay for healthcare. And will hire people part time to avoid regulations. Wanna know why you cant work more than 25 hours a week at one job as a service worker? Because then they gotta give you healthcare, and they dont want that. So now you gotta take multiple jobs just to survive. A well meaning regulation that made our lives better actually made it worse.

It seems obvious, based on these problems, that a Medicare for All system is the ideal solution. It would solve the access and affordability problems. it would free people from being forced to take jobs to get health insurance. It should be the ideal solution. And from 2014ish on, I've been for M4A, putting it as my second highest priority, only outranked by a basic income. 

But that's where my M4A support starts to falter. I've discussed this on the blog before, but around 2021, and you can go back to like April, May 2021 and see a lot of posts on this subject as I tried to work through the issues, my own policy platform has a significant problem of trying to afford both a UBI and Medicare for All. UBI would cost like $4.6 trillion, and M4A currently would cost $3 trillion on top of what we're already spending. That's the 2025 number, not the 2021 number, but even in 2020, 2021 as I worked through numbers, I kinda realized that we don't have unlimited money, and cant just fund everything. There is a ceiling of taxation, and UBI strains that, and M4A adds even more strain. Bernie style progressives can afford M4A mostly because they DONT embrace UBI. This gives them more economic flexibility to pursue other solutions like a massive green new deal jobs programs and M4A. 

Even for Bernie though, a lot of his numbers were a bit iffy. In working on my M4A proposal for my book, I redid bernie's numbers, and found that given the healthcare inflation that's occurred since 2020, the costs of healthcare have ballooned. A universal healthcare system would now cost $5 trillion total. And as El Sayed would point out in his book, since I read it in preparation for working on my own proposal, the cost saving mechanisms of M4A are difficult to predict. Some say it would make healthcare more expensive, some say it would save money. We really don't know. It depends on the plan.

Bernie's plan in 2020 was intended to address a world where total healthcare costs were $3 trillion total, and we only needed around $1.75 trillion more than we were currently spending. Again, we're now up to $5 trillion, and needing $3 trillion. I just can't make the math work. I tried. Here's my best math to try to make it work:
 

Current healthcare spending- $1.9 trillion

7.5% payroll tax- $971 billion

4% household tax- $732 billion

Repealing existing tax breaks for health insurance- $140 billion

Increased corporate taxes- $300 billion

Wealth tax- $275 billion

Improving tax enforcement- $230 billion

Higher estate tax- $25 billion

+_______________________________________

Total: $4.573 trillion

We need around $4.9-5 trillion here. So I'm short. It's a good attempt, but I no longer feel confident I can fund it. And keep in mind, all of this is ON TOP OF UBI, which increases the tax rates across the board bt 20%. I've just decided to shelve the idea. To make the numbers work, I'd potentially have to scale back my UBI plan to around $10,000 a person to ensure the numbers work. That's 63% of the target amount, with potential deficits (keep in mind I'm several hundred billion short of the target) possible exacerbating that.

While, in and of itself, none of this is fatal to M4A support. if I was really hell bent on doing it, I would make it work, again, if it comes at the expense of my UBI plan, that's the one thing that can make me back off. So it's not that I've become a centrist sell out or whatever. It's that I have a hierarchy of priorities, and I gotta compromise on healthcare to ensure my UBI plan has the proper amount of leeway to work. 

On the other hand, Medicare Extra for All, the backup public option plan I considered back in 2021 the last time I faced this problem, is only $300-600 billion. Now, it does this by offloading costs onto the customer instead, but still, the plan is structured not all that differently than a progressive tax would be on income. People with less money get free healthcare. Those who make more money pay more as they're able. The difference between a premium and a tax isn't that significant in practice, so it's just a different way of handling it, and would allow me to keep the accounting on the government side more free for UBI to function. 

In my healthcare draft, I also debated which would be net better for people at the end of the day: Medicare extra or medicare for all. If my UBI were cut in, say, half, each individual would lost $8,000, and your typical 2 adult 1 child household would lost $18,750. On the other hand, such a household would pay around $4,800 a year in healthcare premiums and face a maximum of $5,000 deductible. So...they'd pay at most $9,800 for healthcare per year. 

So...if we adopted Medicare for all, the typical family would lose around $18,750 in order to save around $9,800. That's a net loss of $8,950. With that said, I'd rather pursue a public option. I mean, the more I research the costs, and how I can STILL accomplish my healthcare goals via a public option like medicare extra for all, ensuring universal access and higher affordability, and ensuring that anyone who wants a government plan can have it, and it will align with their income situation whatever that may be, honestly...I've just decided to shelve Medicare for All for now. 

I'm not IDEOLOGICALLY opposed to it. I believe it's the most elegant healthcare policy we could have. But given fiscal constraints other policy priorities impose on my platform, I think it's in my best interests if I distance myself from it and pursue a public option instead. I understand this might disappoint some. It is a move similar to what yang did in his 2020 campaign. And he didnt do it explicitly because of UBI, he just believed he couldnt make the logistics of a transition work. Ironically Medicare extra for all would allow us to possibly expand into a M4A system down the road if we can swing the cost. I mean, when Harris ran on a "medicare for all" system in 2020, her plan was actually a medicare extra for all style public option that would start out as a public option, transitioning to M4A over time. 

In a way, el sayed actually discussed a lot of these possible transition options in his book. He talked about lowering the age, expanding a public option into a universal option over time. I mean, M4A is itself a flexible concept.So...idk. I mean, healthcare policy is a spectrum, really. The difference between a public option and M4A kinda blends together. I guess the big difference is whether you'd ban private health insurance. And I'm leaning toward not doing it. Someone else could do it in the future if they find it fiscally sustainable on top of my other priorities, but I'm just not gonna actively pursue that. I just wanna make sure people are covered and actually have options.

So yeah, that's why I'm no longer actively for medicare for all. I wouldn't say I've changed ideologically, I just made a fiscal compromise to make my own ideal platform more sustainable. To any progressive who wants to use this to blast me or purity test me, I'll do it back to you. What do you think about UBI? Do you support UBI? Care about UBI? I notice a lot of M4A purists arent UBI supporters and I know from 2020 when Yang ran a lot are hostile on the idea. And if that's the case, well, we just have different policy priorities and preferences. Just know this, I haven't changed or "sold out" as much as you think. I just evolved. My own priorities have always been UBI first and M4A second. I'm just acting that out as I try to translate my policy preferences into actual policy that can be implemented in the real world. You don't like what I have? You try to do a better job and then I'll purity test YOU. Like really, I have no chill toward jobist leftists who act all high and mighty on this subject when they don't even share MY priorities. I just wanted to put THAT out there before I deal with annoying purity testers. 

Weighing in on the Michigan senate race

 So I've mostly been staying out of individual senate races unless they become national news. We had Jasmine crocket vs James talarico in Texas. Janet Mills vs Graham Platner is being heavily debated in Maine. And now with Hasangate, Abdul El Sayed is being elevated in Michigan.

And I wanna emphasize that last part. El Sayed was NOT projected to win. he was straight up in THIRD most of the race and I largely ignored him, even if I like him. But beccause the centrist democrats decided to develop Hasan derangement syndrome after Hasan jumped in on El Sayed's side, well, now El Sayed is competitive to win. Congrats, centrist dems, you played yourself by Barbara Streisand effecting your worst enemies again. 

Anyway. Before we get to data, let's discuss the three candidates and their platforms. Abdul El Sayed is a progressive who doesnt have a well defined platform. His big thing is medicare for all. he literally wrote the book on it. And having read it, yeah it's pretty decent. He's kinda the M4A guy in a similar way to me being "the UBI guy." Other than that, he mostly seems to speak in platitudes. On electability, he's probably the worst of the three candidates, being R+3 vs Mike Rogers. For the record, that puts him at a 23% chance of winning. 

 Mallory McMorrow is a slightly more moderate candidate, but she seems pretty progressive herself. I'm not gonna lie, platform wise, I like her better. She has a detailed policy platform including a public option (which is more my lane anyway these days, I'm not as heavy on M4A any more due to the costs). She wants a minimum wage indexed to inflation, a child tax credit, affordable childcare. And she seems to actually have expertise. I'm actually kind of digging her over El Sayed. Like just read the platforms I presented, El Sayed has like blurbs, and McMorrow has a lot more comprehensive policy listed. Yeah, El Sayed is the M4A guy, but not gonna lie, I'll be happy with a public option these days, it's the direction I'm going in anyway. On electability, she's the second best candidate, only being R+1.5 vs Rogers. That gives her more like a 36% chance in winning. So El Sayed is at like 2 in 9, McMorrow is more 1 in 3. 

And then finally, we got Haley Stevens....who....seems....a lot less inspiring. She doesn't have much of a policy agenda. Her big claim to fame is basically working with the Obama administration on fixing the economic crisis, her big thing seems to be job creation and putting people back to work. So...honestly, you can see how that's going over with me. She basically seems like the moderate candidate, the republican lite candidate. Im guessing the hasan derangement syndrome stuff is coming from her because well, it's the most "democrat" thing you can do. Run on next to nothing then bash your opponent as being too extreme. Sadly, she's the most electable, being D+1.3 vs Rogers, and having a 62% shot at winning. That's like 5 in 8. 

So we're seeing a clear trend here. The moderate candidate does better, the progressive candidate does worse. The race is effectively a tossup. Historically, based on older data, it looked like the race was gonna be McMorrow vs Stevens with El Sayed not really having a shot, but now El Sayed seems to have gained steam, is competing directly with McMorrow, and Stevens is now in third place. Given the dualistic nature of this race, and how the electability of a candidate is proportionally inverse with their progressivism, I'm not sure how I feel about this. 

If I were to vote for any of these guys based on what I know about their platforms from their website, I'd want McMorrow. El Sayed is not bad, don't get me wrong, but McMorrow has more policy expertise and a more detailed platform that i find acceptable. And at this point, M4A doesnt give you a huge advantage over a public option. I'll discuss my shifts on medicare for all later in another post. Given the other issue propelling E Sayed to the top is basically...Israel....yeah, it's not really swaying me. I dont feel as aligned with the progressive wing of the party as I used to, when I get into the nitty gritty on policy. I'm still progressive, but there is a bit of a policy mismatch now. I definitely dont like do nothing centrists, but if youre like McMorrow with a huge but slightly more moderate platform full of economic goodies, I'm not gonna exactly crap on that. What matters to me is you try to deliver on what you promise. Im not gonna demand moral purity, especially as my own priorities on M4A shift. 

I also feel like McMorrow is more electable. I admit, polling data for the general election is pretty scarce. What we have is old, and things might have shifted since then. After all, they've shifted massively in the primary. It was a McMorrow vs Stevens race and now it's El Sayed vs McMorrow. Idk I'm currently leaning toward McMorrow, although just like with texas, I'll support whoever the nominee is. El Sayed is not a bad candidate. i do worry about his electability though and his big policy differences from McMorrow arent enough to win me over. Maybe there's more that I'm missing as Im not from michigan and not really paying close attention, but given it's getting more national attention, I wanted to weigh in. It looks like there was a debate, maybe I'll watch later and update.

But yeah, for now I'm temporarily endorsing McMorrow here.  

Who the fudge is JD Vance to argue with the pope?

 Okay, so, I always find it hilarious when Catholics argue with the Pope. I mean, if youre protestant, you get a pass. Your religions were founded protesting the catholic church. That's why you're called protestants. And if you're non christian, you have ZERO reason to care what the pope has to say. You can take it under advisement, but you have no real obligation to follow it. but catholics? To them, the pope is God's representative on earth. He is basically speaking for God, and if you speak out against him, you're a heretic.

JD Vance is a catholic. So...yeah. he just told the pope to stick to "matters of morality" and to not discuss foreign policy.

I mean, in theory, i can kinda understand not wanting the pope to butt in to policy disagreements. I mean, I dont exactly see christianity as a "functional" basis to run the world. Like, if we all lived like Jesus, nothing would function. The dude was an apocalyptic, ascetic preacher. he thought the end times was coming, and Christianity in general was more focused on preparing for that than planning a sustainable society. It's one of the reasons Christianity is so awful to use as a model for planning society. I mean, dont get me wrong. Jesus had a lot of nice and thought provoking things to say. I'm not entirely anti Jesus. BUT....even if you respect the guy, I can see how sometimes some of the things he said don't line up with reality and politics. And sometimes you kinda gotta be "bad", or, at least, tough, harsh, in order to assert yourself on the world stage. 

Ya know? Im not always 100% lovey dovey myself on foreign policy. I understand that who has the biggest stick makes the rules, and I'm fine with us sometimes asserting ourselves to ensure we ARE the ones maintaining those rules. 

BUT...that doesnt mean we should always be swinging our stick around. it's as Teddy Roosevelt once said. Speak softly, AND carry a big stick. Basically, diplomacy first, when that doesn't work, stick. 

The problem with this current war is we got a loud and obnoxious president with a loud and obnoxious drunk frat bro as a "secretary of war", and he's not speaking softly and then swinging the stick. He's swinging the stick just because.

And the stick is killing people, including a lot of innocent people, civilians, etc. And they're supporting Israel, who is committing a genocide. And now invading a sovereign nation in Lebanon. 

And this is where I get back to defending the Pope. Sometimes, war IS a matter of morality. if your war is unjust, and unjustified, yeah. You're the devil, basically. You're evil. I mean, let me ask people this. Was hitler evil in causing WWII? I think we all know the answer to that one. And barring the holocaust, i mean, we CAN compare that to trump's ramping up of questionable deportation policies, and I have made comparisons to that in the past, but just on foreign policy. Why was hitler evil? Because he was a psychipath who invaded countries for no reason, trying to take them over. And here's the kicker...how is trump any different?

I would argue...he's not. All that justifies his actions is rank nationalism, and the idea that he has the bigger stick. This war has no valid justification. Iran was not provoking us. If anything, Israel, the country that got us involved, is doing their own holocaust against the palestinians. Are we the baddies? yeah, we kinda are. We're basically the new Axis powers. It's the Axis of Epstein. 

So if Pope Leo wants to condemn us for that, he can go right ahead. If anything, he's in the right for doing it. Congrats, donald, you're making me agree with funny hat man. But you know what? Despite my distaste of christianity, let's not forget it's the republicans' brand of evangelicalism that got me there. So if Mr Pope guy wants to condemn that and give his own take, I'm gonna sit there and nod and agree with him. Because you know what? He's FAR more moral than the BS going on within the evangelical movement in the republicans in the US. I can at least respect the pope in the modern era. Ya know? I mean, I'm gonna be dismissive of him on social issues mostly. The catholic church is kinda backwards there. Although francis and leo havent been too bad in that regard, at least not by christian standards. And on economics, yeah, they are pretty based. I actually come back around to semi agreeing with them. Because at the end of the day, they're not protestants who push the protestant work ethic. So they're for worker rights, and sometimes even UBI, and yeah. 

And on foreign policy. Anyone with any shred of morality is gonna say we're the bad guys. Even half the US realizes we're the bad guys in this war. Although one thing I will say, Iran needs to chill with their peace terms. We're NEVER going to accept half the demands they're throwing out there. Even if we started this war unprovoked, and  it's unjustified, the worst thing they can do is to...basically do what they're doing. Because at the end of the day, while I didnt want this war, if they're not gonna be compliant in ending it on reasonable terms, we have no choice but to continue fighting, and theyre gonna lose whatever moral high ground they have. And if that means more deaths, well....again. They gotta be more reasonable than an upending of the entire geopolitical world order just to make peace with them. Just because they got us by a painful pressure point doesn't mean we can't just bomb them to the stone age if we want to. We got the firepower. I really dont want us to do that. I kinda wanna end this for both our sakes. I want to spare American lives because I care about my country. I wanna spare Iranian lives because I'm humanitarian. But if Iran doesnt wanna stop tangoing, then tango we shall. 

See...that's one thing I'll diverge from the pope on here. Because again, I dont have to listen to the pope. But I still kinda respect them and that's one thing I will say to support Vance and the Trump administration. I would LOVE to be a peacemaker. But the peace has to be reasonable and if Iran isnt gonna approach it in good faith, well...guess we gotta make BF3 great again...

Still, let's be blunt. Trump started this. He was wrong in starting it. And he's totally in the moral wrong here. And the Pope is, by and large, right. And im not gonna tell the pope to butt out. Because if I disagree with the pope, I dont care what he says. He's free to his opinion, I'm free to mine.

JD Vance though? He should just stfu here, if anything, or call himself a protestant, which he is, if he disagrees with the pope.  

The best and worst years to upgrade your PC

 Okay, so we got the tier lists for CPUs and GPUs, let's do it. What years were the optimal years to upgrade?

2006

Eh, I mean, you could get a really good CPU/GPU combo here, but I think you'd be better off waiting for stuff to get cheaper in 2007. The tech is there, but it was more expensive in 2006. 2007 was a far better value. So, B tier I'd say. I mean, youd probably get a lower clocked core 2 with like an 8600 GT if you budgeted, which is...okay, but given what was available in 2007...nah. 

2007

 If you bought a Q6600 (or even E8400) and paired it with a 8800 GT, you'd be solid through 2013. A 6 year PC was legendary given how fast things moved back then. S tier. 

2008

 I mean, basically whatever you could buy in 2008 you could buy in 2007. You had higher end core 2 quads that were expensive. you had the GTX 200 series, but honestly, the value isn't really here as much. Still, A tier, because for budget buyers it was pretty solid. 

2009

 2009 was a weird time. If you bought around now, you'd be buying aging parts or CPUs/GPUs that wouldnt last super long. You would kinda get the short end of the stuck. Phenom IIs, Nehalem CPUs, aging DX10 GPUs...wasn't great. C tier. 

2010

CPUs are even more dated, GPUs were better though with HD 5000 series and GTX 400 series on the market. Given GPUs were better and the CPUs would last you until 2014-2015, I'd say B tier, but yeah, wasn't great. Not terrible either.

2011

On the CPU side of things, you'd do well with a 2500k or 2600k, GPUs were mid though. Still, you'd be able to stuck a much more powerful GPU in an aging build and use it a few more years. So not terrible. B tier.

2012

Between sandy/ivy bridge for CPUs and the GTX 600/HD 7000 series for GPUs. This is probably the golden year. S tier. You got something good here it would last until 2018ish. If you got something top tier, maybe longer.

2013

Not a bad year. Definitely post peak, but you wouldnt get burned here. A tier. 

2014

If you bought a high end computer like a 4790k with a 970 or 980....great year. if youre a midrange buyer buying a 4670k with a 960 or R9 280 or something. Not a great year. B tier. 

2015

 The value proposition is no better than 2014. Except you lost another year. If you bought midrange, you'd ESPECIALLY get burned here. Quad core i5 6600k with like a 960 2 GB? OOF. That's like....F tier. But because high end buyers didn't make it out too bad, I'll give it a D. 

2016

 CPU wise, unless you went 6700k, you're getting burned. We're at the end of the intel stagnation era and CPU wise you'd get something that ages badly. The GPUs were legendary though. Too bad you didn't wait another 1.5 years though. I'd say C tier overall though. 

2017

Beginning of the year is just more 2016. Kaby lake changed nothing and Zen was middling. You didnt make it out badly if you bought an i7, but otherwise, you got burned. End of the year, good time. Grab a 8600k or 8700k, pair it with a 1060/580 or higher end card. And you're golden well into around 2022-2023. S tier year if you timed it properly. 

2018

 CPU wise, things are no better than late 2017. The market is what the market is. The GPU market starts going to crap as you face eyewatering prices for the Nvidia 2000 series. If you bought a 2060 or higher, you were golden. I'd say like a 8700k/2060 or 2070 build is a solid higher end build. 8600k+1660 Ti or something is kinda meh though. And then you had crypto driving prices for GPUs nuts for a while. B tier. 

2019

 If you bought zen 2, it was a bit better than 2018, but otherwise, same options more or less. Still, given the crapshow about to commence, it was arguably a good year just because the next couple were so bad. Still, you missed the 2017 boat. C tier. 

2020

 God help you if your computer broke down. CPUs werent that bad, Rocket lake and Zen 2 were both competitive. Zen 3 was expensive but solid. But GPUs became unaffordable. I graded the 3000 series on MSRP, but yeah, this is the era where GTX 1050 tis started costing $400. F tier.

2021

 CPU wise interesting things were happening, but once again, GPUs. F tier. Everything was a poor value around this time. 

 2022

 CPUs weren't quite ripe for the pickings yet, but getting there. Zen 3 was going down, alder lake was interesting, but pretty expensive. GPUs were expensive for most of the year, but prices started crashing around the holidays, especially on RX 6000 series. Eh...D tier overall though, unless you bought around christmas. 

2023

GO GO GO GO! GPU prices drop, can finally afford GPUs again. CPU prices drop like a brick. You got a nice beginning of a stagnation era going on. This is the best it's gonna get for a while. This is the optimal time I think for a new computer. You buy here, you get cheap stuff, and you can sit on it through RAMmageddon like I currently am. I dont think that the peaks here are as good as previous eras, given the GPU market has fundamentally changed. but this is the best it's gonna get. A tier. 

2024

The deals are fundamentally unchanged. It's not bad but 2023 was peak season. B tier.

2025

 CPU wise nothing interesting has happened in the past few years. Weve been in a holding pattern since 2023. GPU wise, the 5000 series and 9000 series offered decent uplift, but youre still stuck with 8 GB under $300, although a 9060 XT 16 GB or 5060 Ti 16 GB is tempting. Hopefully you locked in before RAMmageddon. Things started getting rough in Q4. C tier. 

2026

 RIP. We're in the midst of RAMmageddon. I guess it ain't AS bad as COVID, but i guess if you need to buy new RAM it really is. Still, I'm gonna say SLIGHTLY better than COVID, but if you gotta pay $400 for RAM and and $200 for an SSD, not really. F tier. 

So all in all where do things stand?

S tier

2007, 2012, 2017

A tier

2008, 2013, 2023

B tier

2006, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2018, 2024

C tier

2009, 2016, 2019, 2025

D tier

2015, 2022

F tier

2020, 2021, 2026

So, some of these are subjective and can depend on price range. I emphasized midrange buyers here. Like, i5 CPU, 60 class GPU. Yeah. I did consider higher end buyers into the equation somewhat, and some years definitely varied there. Like 2015 could go either way. Either you got burned bad, or you got a GOAT computer that made it through COVID. 

The best times to upgrade were 2007, 2012, 2017 (but only late 2017), and 2023ish. 2023 is A tier because the GPU market never returned to its pre 2018 normal, but still, it's an honorary S tier here simply because hey, you gotta upgrade some time. 

On the flip side, the objectively worst times were 2020, 2021, and 2026. COVID and the new RAMmageddon F-ed up the market in ways that just made it beyond terrible. Even ignoring the longevity of components, you just got burned on price. 

Sometimes years were good on CPUs but not GPUs, like 2011. Some were good on GPUs but not CPUs like 2016. It REALLY depends on what you bought. But yeah. There seems to be an optimal pattern where every 5-6 years, there's a golden year or two in there. If you time it properly, you get the best deals. My luck is mixed. 

I got my GPU in 2022 and CPU in 2023, and hit that optimal A, borderline S tier zone.

Previously I bought a CPU early 2017, but got the GPU late 2017. Kinda like a 2016 year, but I compensated with an i7 to soften the blow knowing the CPU market was kinda F-ed at the moment. 

2010 before that. It was okay. CPU didnt age great, GPU aged okay though. And I got a 580 which eventually got upgraded to a 760 courtesy of EVGA in 2012, so the GPU hit that sweet spot there, but the CPU aged like milk. 

Before that, I got as PC in 2005, which i didnt account for 2005, but that would've been a pretty C tier kind of year, and given i bought at the beginning so I had 2003/2004 tech, it was a D tier decision but one driven by necessity. 

And yeah. Right now, I'm in the goldilocks zone waiting for the next big jump. Probably won't happen until 2028-2030 when RAMmageddon passes, if we arent just witnessing the death of affordable computing thanks to AI. Seriously, we can tell just based on what I wrote that AI is just screwing things up as bad as COVID and crypto. I think it'll eventually pass. but we can clearly see that with GPUs we're frogs in a boiling pot here.  And yeah...

GPU Tier list

 So, I decided to do the same thing I did with CPUs but with GPUs. Here, I'll focus not just on the high end, but also midrange components, and even budget components. I feel like I gotta do that because with CPUs there remains a healthy budget market even today, whereas with GPUs...that's all but dried up. So yeah. I'm basically gonna take the entire product stack into consideration, with emphasis on the $200-300 price range. 

Nvidia 8000 series (2006)

Arguably the GOAT. Definitely the GOAT of the 2000s. When I got into PC gaming, everyone was talking about these, because much like core 2 duos and quads on the CPU side, on GPUs, these crushed the 360 and PS3. Again, those consoles were designed as high end PCs at the time, and here Nvidia and Intel just obsoleted them in like a year. They were also quite affordable. The venerated 8800 GT was $250, and that was an expensive card at the time. Normally the high end was $500ish, and here, the 8800 GTX was $600. And the $250 model almost kept up with it. It was insane. Anyway, much cheaper options existed too like the 8500 GT, the 8600 GT, etc., although none was as solid of a value as the 8800 GT, which BTFOed the consoles 1-2 years after launch. S tier.

Radeon HD 3000 series (2007)

AMD just acquired ATI not long before this, and yeah....ATI was always the "AMD" of GPUs. Like, the second brand, the budget brand. The cheap brand. I mean, it was okay, but the driver support was wonky, and not very long lasting. My first GPU was actually a HD 3650, the AMD equivalent of an 8600 GT or 9500 GT. And yeah the driver experience was awful. But it breathed new life into my old HP desktop regardless. I can't hate on it too bad, B tier. Drivers only lasted about 5 years though. 

Nvidia 9000 series (2008)

The refresh didn't bring much improvement on the high end. Just a bunch of rebrands, the real magic was with the more midrange cards like the 9500 GT and 9600 GT, which were very cheap and very potent. Again, golden age of PC gaming right here. Not quite GOATED, but A tier.

Nvidia GTX 200 series (2008)

Basically, the third iteration of "tesla" (8000/9000 series) architecture. It was becoming quite dated by this point, and lacked DX11 support, which would give it a reduced lifespan. It was very powerful, with the GTX 280 being like 2x the 8800 GT, but it was also VERY expensive. Given AMD struggled to compete with it, basically, nvidia did what Nvidia does and just created tons of new price tiers to offer premium performance, but not really bringing it to the masses. The GTX 260 was like $400. Ya know? It was crazy. And it really didn't last very long due to its lack of features. Just a bad series all around IMO. D tier. 

Radeon HD 4000 series (2008)

Like the 200 series and the HD 3000 series, it didnt last very long. It, too, lacked DX11. AMD was horrid with driver support. But it was much cheaper than the 200 series and offered a much better value at the time. By this point the 8800 GT's performance level was offered by the HD 4830 for like $130. Again, GPU prices were crazy back then. This is why I dunk on the market now. Back then, you could get good hardware for cheap. If anything, the CPU was more of a pain than the GPU long term. Even the 4870 was like only $300. Even with inflation, it's nothing like today.

The big advantage of AMD here is that it did drive the GTX 200 prices down. Nvidia got super arrogant and AMD smacked them down. Still, I can't say the HD 4000 series had great longevity, so I kinda gotta give it like a B tier.

Radeon HD 5000 series (2009)

This took aim at the GTX 200 series too, although I'd say its primary competitor was the GTX 400 series. It targetted the higher end of the 200 series and traded favorably with the 400 series, and at least for the $200 series, often at a lower price. It also had decently better driver support, more VRAM, and DX11 support, making it about as reasonably futureproof as a card could be back then. Gotta keep in mind, 4-6 years was normal back then. And this actually was viable until around 2015-2016, whereas the HD 4000 series and GTX 200 series cards were running out of steam by 2013. A tier. Not quite S, but a solid offering from AMD.

Nvidia GTX 400 series (2010)

A bit late, and a reaction to the HD 5000 series, but it did have better driver support long term. AMD pulled the plug on the 5000 series in 2015 when windows 10 launched, whereas this got drivers until 2018. It didn't matter a ton ton because both GPUs were fairly deprecated by then, but I do think the Nvidia card aged just slightly better here. All in all, also A tier. Both brands did a solid job here.

Radeon HD 6000 series (2011)

And here we have the inevitable refreshes. This one did make 5000 equivalents cheaper, but they had no more longevity. The HD 6000 series was discontinued at around the same time as the HD 5000 series driver wise, and the 1 GB VRAM was the bane of this card's long term existence. C tier. 

Nvidia GTX 500 series (2011)

Similar to the HD 6000 series, it was refreshed 400 series. It has slightly more VRAM, but still topped out at 1.5 GB which didn't help it massively long term. Drivers aged a little better. I guess the advantages it had made it a bit better than AMD's offerings, but neither aged particularly well. I considered giving it a B but I cant justify it, it's more of a C. 

Radeon HD 7000 series (2012)

This one was the GOAT. The venerated GCN architecture that AMD used for generations after this. It sported up to 3 GB VRAM and its architecture aged quite well due to being used in the PS4, having relatively long driver support for AMD, and being reasonably powerful for its time. Probably one of the best series AMD ever launched. S tier.

Nvidia GTX 600 series (2012)

Also pretty GOATED. The GTX 660 and 660 Ti were basically 580s with more VRAM. The high end seemed to lag a bit though, and the kepler architecture kinda aged poorly. This is where AMD "fine wine" became a thing. The HD 7000 series was like the AMD series that aged super gracefully, and then this Nvidia one just...didn't. Nvidia just kept making new architectures while AMD iterated on RDNA. And while Nvidia's innovations would eventually help it capture the high end, AMD kinda dominated the midrange for a while and kept Nvidia in check price wise. I'll give this an A tier since I feel like the Radeons were actually the winners here. 

 Nvidia GTX 700 series (2013)

 REFRESHES GALORE! I mean, there's a pattern, you'd have one series that revolutionizes the market and then a refresh which improved things, but not as much. And yeah, the 700 series was kinda mid. It felt like a bit of a stagnation. The higher end was held back by VRAM, the architecture aged kinda badly. It wasn't bad for the time, but kind of mid. B tier. 

AMD RX 200 series (2013)

This felt like a 7000 series refresh. And I don't even recall much about it. Looking it up, I'd say it had more movement than Nvidia. I mean, the RX 280X was on par with the 7970 GHZ edition for $300. So probably a better value than Nvidia at the time. Heck, it actually does look like really good value, looking it up. I'll give it an A tier since this should have kicked Nvidia's butt. It had really competitive offerings all the way down the stack. And my gosh, look at those sub $100 offerings. Not saying those were very good, but they had so many. I think the 250/250X were the lowest end worth buying IIRC. But yeah that's 5850/460 performance for like $100. That's INSANE. This is why I always rip the market now. Oh, and the RX 290X looked like it was on par with the 780 Ti...while costing much less. 

Yeah, I'm giving this an A tier. Very strong A tier. Actually kinda makes the 700 series refresh look mid. 

Nvidia GTX 900 series (2014)

This series was a bit of a mixed bag for me. If you were at the high end, it was amazing. GTX 970 and above were very solid. The 950 and 960...they were mid. Very, very mid. Like GTX 660 3.0 level mid. The higher ones aged very well, with some of them being the first 8-10 year GPUs. This is where we started getting real longevity with GPUs. The driver support, VRAM, and general power of cards was enough to carry you up to the modern era. So around 2023 or so. 

Still, I can't give this S tier because....well....those mediocre midrange cards. So A tier.

 AMD RX 300 series (2015)

 So, these were a bit more mid I think. The high end card was between a 970 and 980. The midrange was competitive with Nvidia looking it up but nothing special. AMD kinda feel off here. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't great. It's like HD 7000 series 3.0 at this point. And yeah, IIRC these guy discontinued at the same time as the 7000 series so yeah, they aged kinda badly. C tier. 

Nvidia GTX 1000 Series (2016-2017)

 These are the GOATs of the 2010s. You had very solid performance gains, very solid pricing. Lots of VRAM, solid driver support. And yeah, reasonably long life. The 1060 was on par with a 980, the 1070 was on par with a 980 Ti. The 1080 Ti is still on par with the card I use today. This is the last series we truly had a lot of progress for the money with. Some say they never made another series like this because it was just too good and people wouldnt buy more cards. S tier. 

AMD RX 400 series (2016)

AND kinda flopped at the top end, topping out with the $250 RX 480 8 GB. But it had solid value. And AMD was very competitive for what it brought to the table. I can't give it S tier because again, it topped out at the $300 range, and we can see this is where AMD really ran out of steam here and failed to compete. But still it deserves at least a B for value alone. 

AMD RX 500 series (2017)

It's a refresh. SIngle digit performance gains. Just 400 series slightly overclocked. I swear they launched it just so they could say the 580 actually beat the 480 by like 2% or something. Still, despite that, it also had worse driver support over time. Honestly the magic is gone. C tier. 

 AMD RX Vega series (2017)

 These are AMD's high end cards intended to compete with the 1070, 1080, etc. They flopped. They were buggy messes. Very power inefficient. They were hated by the masses. AMD was kinda imploding by this point. And this is kinda how we got the Nvidia monopoly we have today....F tier. 

 Nvidia GTX1600/RTX 2000 Series (2018)

 And this is where Nvidia turned evil. Nvidia raised the prices like it was the GTX 200 days all over again. The RTX 2060 was priced more like a GTX 1070. It was the lowest end RTX card at $350. And yeah. Many of their performance gains were blunted by price increases. This is also where we got ray tracing from, and DLSS, which should be seen as massive innovations, but given what it did to the industry...no. This is where we started witnessing the death of the affordable GPU. Up through this point, we had options all the way from like sub $100 up to $700. But here, Nvidia pushed $1k for the 2080 Ti, $700 for the 2080, $500 for the 2070, and $350 for the 2060.

The 16 series were for the poors and featured a 1660 Ti/Super for around $250-270, so...GTX 1070 perfomance with less VRAM. The 1650 and 1650 Super were around 1060 level for around $150ish. And those were okay. But yeah. Im going to be honest. This was a very mid series. I mean, groundbreaking in some ways, with the higher end cards still relevant to this day, but yeah, only if you were rich. D tier. 

 AMD RX 5000 series (2019)

 AMD offered the somewhat more affordable RX 5000 series cards, which were a much better value for the money on paper, but they lacked those RTX and DLSS style features and a bunch of other things. They also were buggy and broken driver wise, and by this point AMD's driver support returned to their norm. So these aged like milk. Would've been a welcome addition to the market in 2017, but by 2019, yeah, AMD is kinda in their death throes here while Nvidia is securing its monopoly status in the market...

F tier. between this and Vega, they're in their GPU bulldozer moment. 

Nvidia RTX 3000 series (2020-2021)

Another relatively unattractive series from nvidia. Most of the lineup stuck to 8 GB RAM. While the cards at the higher end had plenty of power, they were crippled by the VRAM. The 3060 had 12 though, making it a relatively GOATED Nvidia staple. Btw, they did that because they knew the market would never accept 6 GB at this point. So they unironically made probably the most futureproof 60 card since the 1060 here. But it was $330 at launch and due to the COVID pandemic and crypto nonsense, good luck finding one. This era was just hell for GPU pricing. 

It's probably the most memorable of the RTX series, but yeah. I just can't help but hate it. B tier and I'm being generous. 

AMD RX 6000 series (2021-2022)

The RX 6000 series started out very unattractive. They tried to arrogantly compete with Nvidia at the same price/performance points, it didn't work. Their offerings were inferior. Even if on par with raster, they often had less VRAM at the low end, although at the high end they had more. They had ray tracing, but it was sub 2000 series performance levels. Their driver support is iffy on these. They've aged...okay, but given AMD was already talking about cutting support, yeah...AMD really needs to stop doing that. It's not acceptable any more. Especially given how long we keep GPUs these days. It's not like 2008 any more where things advanced so fast it didnt matter if a 4 year old GPU no longer got drivers, you do that crap in the 2020s and the internet is gonna hate you for it.

Still, I gotta say, this is also arguably the best of AMD's modern offerings IMO. Post COVID, AMD's GPUs crashed in price first, leading to that golden moment for those 2014-2017 era GPU owners to finally upgrade to a modern card. And having a 6650 XT, it's still a solid value, even to this day. I wouldnt recommend it over a 5050, but it's still available. Probably the GOAT of the 2020s so far, but I cant give it S tier. It's more like an A tier.

And to be fair it had its stinkers too. The 6400 and 6500 were cut down jokes of cards. ANd yeah, the sub $200 market is now dead by this point. 

Nvidia RTX 4000 series (2023)

At the high end, this is a very solid series. At the low end, it felt more middling. Its weird to see the "low end" now include $300 GPUs, but again, you see what happened to the market here? The low end market just dried up. The 4060 is now the bottom dog here. And it was a middling improvement over the likes of the 6650 XT and 3060. It had less VRAM than the 3060. It was $300 when you could buy a 6700 XT for a similar price. It had Nvidia's tech, and AMD wasn't being TOO aggressive on price here. AMD was offering $250 for similar performance. I mean, it's kinda what the market was until RAMmagedon eh....again, I'm not overly impressed. I guess B tier solely because the high end of the market was thriving, but otherwise I'd give this a C. 

AMD RX 7000 series (2023)

 This series was largely offered along side the 6000 series, at similar price points as the 6000 series. It was newer and has better tech, and AMD isnt talking about totally cutting driver support yet, but yeah it also didn't offer much the 6000 series didn't. They were kinda competing with themselves as much as with Nvidia on this one. They offered a better value than Nvidia on price/performance, but they never could compete with the top end. Not as good as the 6000 series, and yeah. Idk, I kinda feel like this is the RX 500 series all over again. Just not topping out at $300. So idk, I'll give it a B, but it feels like an unnecessary refresh. 

Nvidia 5000 series (2025)

I'm not gonna include RAMageddon in this as it's neither AMD nor Nvidia's fault. But based on MSRP and market conditions. I kinda felt meh on this. On the one hand, at the 60 level, the 5060 was $300, and offered a pretty decent jump over the 3060 and 4060 finally, but it still had 8 GB VRAM. Which is just barely acceptable. It was a nice jump, but it offered poor value, and in order to get more, you needed to spend $430 on a 16 GB 5060 Ti. This is pre RAMmagedon. Are they insane? Well, they have a monopoly, and what are you gonna do, buy Nvidia? Like really, they dont care. They offered a $250 5050 which is basically just a 4060, but yeah, again, not a huge amount of movement this gen. I mean in raw power a few GPUs had an okay shift in performance, but most didn't, and 8 GB RAM is atrocious by this point. 

Honestly, C tier...

AMD RX 9000 series (2025)

 AMD's equivalent. Sometimes a better deal. I know the 9070 XT can be a better deal with a 5070 Ti, for instance at the higher end. At the low end, the 9060 XT seemed to be a cheaper 5060, at $280 pre RAMmageddon, with the 16 GB version trading favorably with the 5060 Ti for less. So it does offer more value. But again, AMD still has inferior tech, their driver support for the future is iffy. There are drawbacks. Still, depending on the value offered, I'd easily buy it over Nvidia right now. Nvidia is the default brand to buy but if AMD has better value it has better value. Sadly, much of that has been erased by the RAM shortage, with prices being as high as Nvidia's for the 9060 XT for instance. The 9070 XT is still compelling at the high end though. Still, we're talking like $350-800 for GPUs now. Where's the low end market? As I said, it just flat out died since the RTX 2000 series. So...idk....I'll give it C tier too. It isnt that amazing for the money. 

Conclusion

Honestly, I feel like this story goes all in with everything else I've been saying about the GPU market going to crap since the 2000 series. You can definitely see the inflection point there and the subsequent death of the low end and even parts of the midrange market, with the new low end offering prices similar to what used to be midrange at best, even upper midrange. It's a joke. It's terrible. I hate the modern market. GPUs used to be so cheap, and so competitive. And all that's been gone since about 2018. To be fair, even in 2015-2017, we started seeing signs of the trouble. The root cause? AMD just failed to compete, and then when Nvidia asserted its dominance with new tech, they could just charge whatever they wanted and get away with it. Even more so due to crypto and more recently, AI. It's a joke. There's a reason Im like "if things continued the way they used to, we should be getting 5090 performance for $300", I'm not kidding. Things used to advance that fast. And now they're super slow. Which can mean longevity, but it also means paying a lot more as well. 

Anyway, the tiers, here they are:

S Tier

Nvidia 8000 Series (2006-2007), Radeon HD 7000 series (2012), Nvidia 1000 series (2016-2017) 

A Tier

Nvidia 9000 series (2008), Radeon HD 5000 series (2010), GTX 400 series (2010), Nvidia 600 series (2012), AMD RX 200 series (2013), Nvidia 900 series (2014), AMD RX 6000 series (2021-2022)

B Tier

Radeon HD 3000 series (2007), Nvidia 9000 series (2008), Radeon HD 4000 series (2008), Nvidia GTX 700 series (2013), AMD RX 400 series (2016), Nvidia RTX 3000 series (2021), AMD RX 7000 series (2023) 

C Tier

Radeon HD 6000 series (2011), Nvidia 500 series (2011), AMD RX 300 series (2015), AMD RX 500 series (2017), Nvidia RTX 4000 series (2023), Nvidia 5000 series (2025), AMD RX 9000 series (2025) 

D Tier

Nvidia 200 series (2008), Nvidia 16/2000 series (2018) 

F Tier

AMD RX Vega series (2017), AMD RX 5000 series (2019)

Some tiers are debatable. Arguably, the F and D tiers should be one tier. You can argue the 2000 series wasnt THAT bad and should be C tier, but I hate what it did to the market, and yeah. On the high end, some of the A series ones are borderline S, but I did reserve S for what I thought were the best.  

CPU tier list

 So....I saw some people on a hardware forum glazing AMD again and acting like the 5800X3D is "the GOAT" of processors, and it's...not. Don't get me wrong, it's a solid processor, but it the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's "the GOAT." If anything, it's a rather average offering all things considered. But that got me wondering, what ARE the best CPUs of all time. We always talk about the "legendary" Q6600s, the 2600ks, and I kinda gotta ask, what's the modern equivalent of that? Spoilers, I'd probably say the 7800X3D for reasons I'll get to later, but let's have a discussion about this.

For reference, I only plan on going back to 2006 or so. My expertise is spotty before that and 20 years is a reasonable cutoff anyway. I'll primarily be focused on the generations, with limited discussion of individual CPUs, although I might point out a few standouts, particularly in the mid range and high end. I'm also focused exclusively on consumer grade CPUs, so not mobile, or HEDT, whatever. And another emphasis of mine is gaming performance. With that said, let's begin.

Core 2 Series (2006-2008)

So, the Core 2 Series was LEGENDARY. As discussed recently, the 360 and PS3 were built like high end PCs at the time. But because tech advanced a lot more quickly back then, those consoles were obsolete a year into their existence. LITERALLY. The 2006-2008 hardware jumps were INSANE. A core 2 Duo was such a massive performance over what came before it it literally obsoleted everything before it overnight. And a lot of those CPUs were pretty solid through the entire console generation. If you had like an E8400 or especially a Q6600, you were set until the end of the generation, with the dual cores struggling, but the quads holding strong. And then they got to jump to the next LEGENDARY CPUs. S tier.

One more thing I wanna mention, they did have a few different lines of these, I dont remember them well. I think the weaker ones were first, but then the second and third iterations where a lot stronger. Q6600 was technically first iteration, super expensive, but then it got cheap as the later ones ruled out. That one in particular deserves a shoutout.

Phenom I (2007-2008)

AMD was caught by core 2 with their pants down, and struggled to develop a compelling alternative. They matched intel on core count, but the single core performance was markedly worse, and intel dominated gaming charts. The fact is, these CPUs never aged well. The single core was a bit deficient, intel dominated charts, and by the time games used all those cores, there were better options on the market. Common trend for AMD in this history lesson. Not as bad as some CPUs on this list, but an underwhelming showing. D tier.

Nehalem (2008-2009)

Nehalem was a huge architectural leap forward for intel, but not a huge performance leap. This first gen had barely better performance than flagship core 2 quads, although it offered the performance at a lower price. It did establish the core i series as we know it, but it wasn't really super strong. Kind of moving sideways to move forward. The i5 760 and i7s aged better than other contemporary processors like core 2 and phenom, but they still didnt age well in the grand scheme of things. Kinda awkward. Not bad, but not great. B tier.

Phenom II (2009-2010)

So, I owned one of these things. It was a relatively budget series compared to intel, but it promsed similar performance. However, remember what I said about architecture? Yeah...

This was basically an answer to core 2...after intel had already moved on to their core i series. And remember those architectural improvements, yeah, the CPUs were about as powerful on paper, but due to being a bit more dated architecturally, they kinda fell on their face at times, and lacked instruction sets as they aged as well (a lot of older AMD CPUs struggled in this regard, it's why I have such dismal views of them mostly). 

Still, not a terrible outing. The quad cores were the optimal choice here. They 6 cores but games wouldnt use more cores reliably until these were horribly outdated. 

C tier. 

Sandy bridge (2011)

The sandy bridge processors were THE GOAT processors of the entire 2010s I think. The 2500k was a solid CPU through the entire quad core era, with the 2600k arguably being solid until around like 2021. Seriously, if you had high end, you probably had the first 8-10 year processor. Like a solid 30-40% bump over what came before, and was the last real big bump until 2017. It was so good it basically heralded in the "intel stagnation era." S tier.

Bulldozer (2011)

While intel was having their best moment, AMD was having their worst. They somehow made a processor with weaker performance than their Phenom series. They had more cores, but again, more cores were kinda useless at this point in time. But yeah, between intel dominating gaming charts and AMD imploding, we got the intel stagnation era. F tier.

Ivy Bridge (2012)

Basically, more sandy bridge. Single digit gains. If you bought one of these you were likely golden, but they didnt offer anything not already offered. I cant hate on them since they dominated the gaming market and you still had solid longevity, but not as goated as sandy bridge. A tier.

Piledriver (2012)

So bad that AMD stopped making CPUs for 5 years. Im not kidding. I mean, it was their 2nd generation of bulldozer. It still sucked, but not as bad. At least it beat the phenoms by this point. Still, they trailed gaming charts big time. Between these and the phenoms, this is how AMD developed such a bad reputation overall. D tier. 

Haswell (2013)

Sandy bridge 3.0. Not as goated and as long lasting as sandy bridge, although it did have newer instructions which helped. Still....B tier. Kind of a mid outing.

Devil's Canyon (2014)

Haswell refresh....this one is more popular primarily for the 4790k, which had higher clocks and was pretty solid, but yeah...more of the same. I'm probably gonna go A tier for the 4790k alone, as that was a solid 8-10 year processor, but other than that...just more stagnation.

Btw, during this era I was waiting to upgrade my phenoms but I didnt wanna get caught with the last quad core generation before intel moved on, and I was thinking, gee this is the 4th one in a row. Clearly the fever has to break at some point, right? My phenom aged like milk. Huge reason I gave it a C tier. 

Skylake (2015)

The jump to DDR4 made it the biggest jump in years, and the 6700k was a solid 8 year CPU. Still, the normal quad core started showing its age a bit pretty early into its lifespan, so while the 2500k, 3570k, and 4650/4670k owners got a reasonable lifespan here, 6600k people very much didn't (see: BF5, a 2018 game). So...kind of a middling generation. 5th year of quad cores, set the 14nm standard, but still, it wasn't great. B tier. 

Kaby Lake (2017)

So...remember what I said about not wanting to catch the last generation of quad cores? Yeah....I'm STILL holding out on a phenom II over here by this point. I wanted to wait for AMD Ryzen, but after disappointing gaming reviews, I bought a 7700k. 

This was, perhaps, the WORST generation to upgrade. The i7s didnt age that badly. The 7700k was still a solid 6 year processor, but a 6 year i7 is pretty pathetic. Most i7s were like 8-10 year processors up to this point. And if you got anything below an i7...well....lets just say, you were already struggling with BF1 and BF5 ran like crap on quad cores. So this is perhaps one of the worst intel processors ever. I won't quite give it an F tier, but a D? Yeah. It aged like milk. 

Zen 1 (2017)

*sigh*, I really chose a bad time to upgrade, didn't I? AMD really overpromised, in typical AMD fashion. I know AMD fanboys glaze ryzen, but let me explain why, to me, it felt like bulldozer's third coming. It was impressive on paper. it offered up to 8 cores with SMT in an era where intel offered only 4. But its cores were weaker, especially for gaming. Architecturally, it was a hot mess. Intel had an interconnect called "ring bus" which allowed fast low latency communication. It was why intel had faster gaming performance despite similar on paper specs. AMD had their CPU stretched over multiple tiles with what's called "infinity fabric." Between worse IPC, low clock speeds, and this latency penalty, the 1700 was running almost 35-40% behind a 7700k in single core gaming workloads. This led to very middling gaming performance. AMD fanboys swore it would give people more longevity, but at the high end...no, no it didn't. I have to say though, the 1600x was a compelling product vs the 7600k though. The extra cores did come in handy, although for most of the lineup, the two series traded blows with intel being favorable in gaming performance outside of the 1600 vs 7600k range. They just had better single thread while AMD threw cores at the problem. Still, I gotta give them credit for innovating. C tier. 

Coffee Lake (2017-2018)

One thing Ryzen did do, it forced intel to get off of its butt and release more cores. The next few years would represent a massive shift in performance with the two companies going all out, and things shifting rapidly. By 2020, the i7 7700k would be an i3, and the if you bought anything other than coffee lake in 2017, you basically got the short end of the stick. 

So...there's 2 iterations of coffee lake. The first bumped the i5 and i7 series up to 6 cores. The refresh also led to the first i9, being an 8 core 16 thread model. It was still on intel's 14nm process, but eh, it still was fast enough to BTFO Ryzen for gaming. THe 8600k offered 7700k like performance for a bit less money, and the 8700k is arguably GOAT status. It's hard to say though. Hardware unboxed recently reviewed all intel processors from 2017 on and coffee lake was more incremental than I thought. Still, I feel like if I had a 6 core I probably would've held onto it for a few more years, which...would've helped at the time, but then screwed me with rampocalypse and the 2020s' own version of stagnation.

Still, A for effort. A tier. I think A tier is fair here. 

Zen+ (2018)

So, this was like Zen 1.5, and it was basically the 2000 series. Not gonna lie, the 2000 series is what I hoped the 1000 series would deliver on. Weaker single thread performance than intel, but closer to 20-25% rather than 30-40%. The 2700x was a solid 20-25% performance over the 1700. Still it was a bit too little too late by this point. While it wasn't awful, intel asserted itself as the gaming king by this point and it was fairly middling as a result. A good kaby lake killer, but not a coffee lake killer at all.  I'll say C tier. 

Zen 2 (2019)

While intel was stuck on 14nm+++ by this point, AMD was making strides in closing the gap. On paper, Zen 2 beat intel 14nm, but due to the interconnect I discussed with the latency penalty, it was still middling. Still, it closed the gap ENOUGH where I would finally say zen 2 was worth buying. Intel still had better single core, but AMD was offering SMT, and you could argue a 3600x would age better than, say, a 9600k. And I would say in retrospect it did. The 9600k was closer to the 3300x, a 4 core Zen 2 CPU that had SMT and due to being on one tile, lacked the latency penalty. I'd say a solid B tier offering here.

Comet lake (2020)

Intel, stuck on their Skylake process still, but needing to do something, upped the core counts again, this time matching AMD. And they could generally outperform AMD in gaming scenarios. By this point, the 6700k/7700k were i3s, the 8700k was an i5, and the 9900k was an i7. And then there was a 10 core 10900k. The architecture was clearly dated by this point, but they still had the edge over AMD, and while I cant say this aged super well given what was to come, it didn't age badly either. Considering its 6 years later, I'd still consider CPUs like this to be viable, albeit dated. B tier. 

Zen 3 (2020-2022)

Okay, so, this IS where the magic really happened for AMD. Zen 3 is where AMD temporarily took the lead. Intel got stuck in 14nm++++ hell, and AMD kept innovating and learning from their own flaws. Intel stagnated. This one had the big architectural changes that turned AMD into the powerhouse that it is today. They upped their tile size to 8, so they could have 8 core CPUs with low latency, and then they created X3D a few years later, which supercharged their CPUs, completely overcoming AMD's historic gaming flaws and putting them ahead of the pack. 

Still...is it an S tier goat? I'd say no. Mainly because their lead was temporary and while the series has aged gracefully, they were relatively quickly surpassed by future AMD and Intel products. Even the 5800 X3D had an intel answer at the time and that level of performance has since become comfortably midrange. It didnt quite have the dominance of say, the 2600k. 

A tier. 

Rocket Lake (2021)

I'm tempted to make a "challenger lake" joke, but that's too harsh and more apt for raptor lake. Rocket Lake is intel's "bulldozer" moment. They tried shifting to a new architecture, only for it to be worse than their last. The series has always been iffy, and honestly, it was always a poor value. 

Still, it was a rather short lived mistake. D tier. 

Alder Lake (2021)

Just like Zen 3 is what made AMD into what they are today, Alder Lake made intel into what they are. Alder lake is a very interesting series. It was compatible with both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM, with performance comparable to Zen 3 on DDR4, and surpassing it on DDR5. The 12900k even matched the 5800X3D, and that CPU was AMD's answer to intel temporarily taking back the gaming crown. Both CPUs offered similar performance, but zen 3 typically undercut intel on price. 

Both CPUs are also still relevant today and available as budget options. Still, at the time, they were expensive. 

In a way, Alder lake was intel's Zen moment in a good way. It not only featured a massive node jump, modernizing it, but it also introduced ecores, giving Intel unparalleled multithreaded performance. Ecores arent as fast as Pcores, but they're solid for adding multithreaded oomph.

On the downside, these CPUs ran very hot and were very power hungry. Not like they burned themselves out though. That's intel's next F up. 

A tier. Very solid A tier. Arguably, the 12900k is a modern Q6600. I'll actually stand by that. Its multicore oomph is still i5 tier today, and its gaming performance keeps up with more modern mid tier performers. it also got quite a few price drops over time as further changes made it a compelling budget and midrange option. I bought one of these for this reason. 

Zen 4 (2022-2023)

AMD made a jump to DDR5 here, and that put them back on top. They matched their 5800X3D performance with a normal 7700x, and their platform was arguably superior to Alder Lake. While quite expensive at first, it sported a 10% single thread advantage in performance, putting them on top again, although their CPUs had fewer cores than intel. Over time, it got cheaper though, as DDR5 became more affordable until recently, and the CPU and Mobo prices dropped, and now it's a solid option. The 7800X3D is arguably the GOAT, because it released in 2023, is now 3 years old, and intel has no real answer to it even now. And AMD's answer to it is...the 9800X3D...yeah...

All in all, if anything deserves an S tier, it's probably this. Still, I struggle to give it S tier. Even if the 7800X3D is the GOAT of modern gaming processors IMO, and I had an opportunity to buy one, I didn't, because of platform teething issues. DDR5 is kind of an unstable product, and its especially unstable on AMD's ecosystem. So I bought a 12900k instead, saving myself $100, and a lot of headaches in the process. Still, if I had to say any processor is the "GOAT" of the modern era, it's this. THis is the new 2600k, if anything is. A 5800X3D is arguably more like a 2500k, still a solid product, but it's not gonna age as gracefully. By this point, virtually all midrange CPUs get comparable gaming performance. So...A tier I guess. A very A tier that might get retroactively inducted into S tier. 

Raptor Lake (2022-2023)

Remember that "Challenger Lake" joke I almost made with rocket lake? I'm gonna invoke that now. Remember how I said that Alder Lake was super hot and power hungry? Well, imagine you're intel, AMD releases Zen 4, and while it's not THAT much faster, you REALLY wanna keep that gaming crown, so you try pushing even MORE cores, with MORE power, and MORE clock speed.....and then it all kinda...blows up? Yeah. That's raptor lake. 

On paper, it was a very solid series, perhaps not GOAT status, since it never had an answer to the 7800X3D, but it still gave AMD a good run for its money. It bumped the core counts again, turning the 13700k into an OCed 12900k, and 12900k performance was now gotten by a midrange 13600k. By this point, I was upgrading, and I was salivating over the 13600k, the 5800X3D, and while I did consider the 7800X3D when microcenter released a deal on it...again, RAM teething issues. Still, I ended up going 12900k for the lower price, and that's what it's big legacy was in a positive way. It set the bar for the modern era, driving the cost of modern CPUs down. You could now get 12900k/5800X3D performance for i5 prices. You had more cores than you knew what to do with, and to me, AMD offerings kinda looked quaint in compairson. I kinda realize by this point we're in another stagnation era. AMD is STILL offering 6-8 cores for R5s/R7s. While intel's offerings are 14 cores for a 13600k and up to 20 by the time the 14700k came out. And sure, it might be 2 ecores to a P core performance wise, but that's still a lot of processing power, while matching the gaming performance.

Too bad they fricking fried themselves from the voltage. And had manufacturing defects from oxidation issues. Really. I have to give them F tier just for that. Otherwise, a solid A tier. 

Zen 5 (2024-2026)

the AMD stagnation era has officially begun. For most of the lineup, it was called Zen 5% for a reason. You got a 5% uplift. So we're talking intel 2010s era stagnation here. THe 9800X3D was the biggest improvement, further concentrating their lead over intel. And now they're refreshing it again with the 9850X3D. Stop, stop, they're already dead.

Still, on that front, I do wanna point something out. Most Zen processors that are X3D are R7s. Basically AMD's equivalent to an i7. They're premium products. When sandy bridge dominated, AMD CPUs performed closest to dual core i3s. Intel is still viable well into the i5 and i7 range here, especially with price cuts to older alder lake CPUs. LIke, the 9700x isnt anything special. Nor is the 9600x. AMD does have 6 core 7600X3Ds at like microcenter, and they are a compelling value these days, just note that it's buying a 6 core...in 2026. Idk, I kinda feel like that's a "7700k" move right there. It's fast...until games want more cores, which they will inevitably do. Not saying that its worth buying a multicored monster if youre a gamer only, but I do think that the 7800X3D/9800X3D are like the modern 8700k/9900k style CPUs, while the 7600X3D is like an 8600k, and the intel CPUs are closer to like...idk...zen 2700xs or 3700xs or something. 

As such, Zen 5 is definitely not S tier either. Idk if anything is. I'm tempted to say B tier. It's the 2nd and 3rd iterations of the 7800X3D followed by rather mid offerings in the midrange. I dont think there is a clear S tier, the 7800X3D might quality as an S tier CPU, but the zen 4 series is more A tier IMO.

Arrow Lake (2024-2026)

So after Supernova lake blew up intel (I hope that isn't foreshadowing anything given "nova lake" is the next gen of intel parts to come out), intel kind of imploded into a white dwarf of failure, having their own bulldozer moment once again. I dont think their failure is AS bad as bulldozer, as that was so messed up it killed AMD for 5 years and intel enjoyed massive advantages at virtually all price ranges, something AMD has failed to achieve IMO, but yeah....Arrow lake is slower than raptor lake. They regressed to something akin to alder lake, stepping off the gas so the dont blow up their own CPUs any more, and redid their entire architecture, pulling a zen 1 move and moving toward a tile architecture with lots of latency. So...yeah. lots of raw CPU power, relatively poor gaming performance. Not awful awful, I feel like intel can actually compete at the midrange here, but they arent taking any gaming crowns here. 

The refresh with the 250k, and 270k is regaining some momentum, but it's really just "congrats, you're back at the raptor lake levels of performance you achieved 4 years ago." We truly are in the new stagnation era...

Honestly. Arrow Lake gets a D tier. At least it didn't blow up. But still, a bit of a regression here followed by starting to dig itself out of a hole. I dont think this is truly as bad as bulldozer, but intel is clearly struggling here. Still, I do think that this is more like a zen 1 moment to say the least. Kind of a flawed reboot with inferior performance, with them already having their zen+ moment with the refresh. 

Conclusion

And thats where we are. Later in 2026 or in early 2027, we're likely to see AMD release Zen 6 and intel to release Nova lake. Both are supposed to sport higher IPC gains, meaning we finally jump in single core performance. Core count boosts are supposed to happen too. AMD will offer 12 cores on a CCD, whereas intel is offering up to 52 cores, although I think their mainstream models will feature a more tame 28. Intel is also support to have a BLLC cache or something, which is supposed to counter X3D. So this can heat up and get interesting.

Still, I feel like my 12900k is a fricking Q6600 over here. 16 cores, 24 threads, decent single core, not the fastest, but it is looking to possibly be a legendary processor at this point. It should've been BTFOed by raptor lake and arrow lake, but between raptor lake...imploding...and arrow lake...also imploding in its own way...it's still standing up there. Not as fast as a premium X3D CPU but for a 5 year old CPU, it's aging quite gracefully. I cant see myself replacing this before 2030 at this rate. 

So yeah, let's post the final results:

S tier

Core 2 (2006-2008), Sandy Bridge (2011)

A tier

Ivy Bridge (2012), Devil's Canyon (2014), Coffee Lake (2017-2018), Zen 3 (2020), Alder Lake (2021), Zen 4 (2022-2023)

B tier

Nehalem (2008), Haswell (2013), Skylake (2015), Zen 2 (2019), Comet Lake (2020), Zen 5 (2024-2026)

C tier

Phenom II (2009-2010), Zen 1 (2017), Zen+ (2018)

D tier

Phenom I (2007-2008), Piledriver (2012), Kaby Lake (2017), Rocket Lake (2021), Arrow Lake (2024-2026)

F tier

Bulldozer (2011), Raptor Lake (2022-2023)

HOnestly, some placements can be disputed. Zen 4 arguably belongs in S tier, I just didnt think its midrange offerings were really that special. Coffee lake is possibly S tier, but I dont think it aged as well as I thought it did in retrospect. Raptor lake was A tier in terms of on paper offerings, it just....fried itself. And yeah the positions are debatable. But honestly....

S tier- GOAT status

A tier- Strong offerings, but not quite GOAT status

B tier- A decent launch that didnt offer anything special but wasnt bad either.

C tier- Offerings were mediocre, but had some redeeming value

D tier- Bad and clearly lagging behind the competition, but not legendarily so

F tier- The greatest F ups of all time

And yeah. That's my tier list. 

Summarizing some of my thoughts on feminism from the previous article

 So, I understand I write rambly messes sometimes, but there is one point from that article I do wanna highlight more succinctly, and that's basically this.

I feel like a lot of modern feminism and womens' liberation is hypocritical in the sense that it changed the social contract for women, but not for men. A lot of this comes from the whole ideological privilege stuff. It's only progress if we change things for under privileged groups, but not privileged groups. This approach is kind of one dimensional and ignores the greater context of the suffering that we might engage in in our society. I mean, sure, one group can have it worse, but that doesn't make it right for ANY group.

The traditionalist social contract is this: women stay at home and pop out and raise kids, men get jobs and make the money. Men having control of finances put women in a compromised position, often unable to leave bad marriages, so they wanted more power and the ability to get jobs and climb the corporate ladder. I'm fine with this btw, Im sure AF not a traditionalist. I am, if anything, a more consistent progressive. I mean, I'm the UBI guy. I want everyone to have financial independence and not be dependent on ANYONE. Spouses, employers, what have you. 

But...feminism kind of enforces a "rights and empowerment for me but not for thee" kind of mindset. When we talk about the idea of men NOT working or wanting to stay home and be "house husbands" or "stay at home boyfriends", people think those men are losers. I mean, again, this feminism raised women to the status of men on paper, and again, totally a good thing, but it kind of did so within the language of jobs and work, which i see as negative. Because in my worldview, wage labor is just a form of soft slavery and you're forced into abusive relationships with employers instead of spouses. We really gotta get over this idea that hard work makes us financially independent. I mean, it kinda has the same ring to it as "work makes you free"....gee, who else thought that?

And....it's not just this subject where these dynamics are at play. It's everything. I cant stand a lot of pro choice spaces these days because they're full of loud and obnoxious women shouting "my body my choice", but the second we talk about financial abortion for men, the traditionalist sex shaming comes out. All of the sudden these people sound like evangelicals saying you shouldnt have had sex and if you didnt wanna be locked into child support for 18 years you should've been more responsible. Again, these guys embrace all those christian ethics. Just not when it applies to women. but men, well F men. 

Feminists push body positivity movements, which, again, IN MODERATION, I dont have an issue with. I mean, we shouldnt act like being fat is "okay" from a health standpoint, but honestly, people should be free to live as they want. But then when it comes to men, well, they want the ideal partner. Under 6 foot, bad. A little bit of a beer gut, bad. Balding, don't even bother. Not financially successful, ew, go away loser. And then they complain there arent any good men out there, ya know, like incels would for women. 

Again, its like men shouldnt have standards but women should.

Men are supposed to be the ones to approach women, but then we're chastised or called creepy for doing so. This one is a huge pet peeve for me in particular, given my social anxiety and autism. 

And as we know in the autistic communities, despite the vast majority being straight men, their concerns get suppressed in favor of that minority of left wing activists who are women, gay, trans, etc. And we're just supposed to stfu, we're shamed for venting our concerns as straight men, and are often unwelcome in those communities. If we express anything remotely similar to the "there's no good men out there" mindset but toward women even in moderation, we're accused of being incels. 

Again, it's the double I standards I don't like.

Men have concerns. Just because we're historically "privileged" in power dynamics doesnt mean those concerns are illegitimate, which, I think, is a HUGE reason this stuff is so massively unpopular with the majority of people (and arguably a reason the orange moron won again). 

Men have issues with employment and financial success, especially in the modern era.

We have problems with issues like child support, custody issues with children, etc. We're trusted less in these courts. And the rulings often go against us.

We're expected to be masculine, to not share our feelings, to suck it up.

We're expected to navigate an increasingly dysfunctional maze of confusing mixed signals in order to date. The dynamics have shifted where everything feels like it's on the women's terms and we're just blasted for doing everything wrong. 

I mean, younger generations dont even wanna date. And the most regressive of men are going back toward traditionalism and wanting to go back to the 1950s again in reaction to these changes. Which is bad. Again, wanna make it clear, NOT a traditionalist. Not alt right here. You can call me some variation of "alt left", whatever that may mean (left wing but not traditionally left wing?). But yeah Im clearly trying to approach this from an egalitarian perspective.

Honestly, MRA stuff isn't the answer. We need an ethic that sees people as people and tries to push men and women as EQUALS. Instead, it seems like men get all the traditionalist social obligations and none of the progress. Maybe if progress means making women more like men, feminism has done that, but as a man, I think the entire traditionalist framework is dysfunctional in the first place. I dont wanna save or preserve it for either side. Just as I'm a "liberal feminist" if you wanna call it that, I'm just as progressive and egalitarian for men. And that means rejection of the entire old social contract related to traditionalism, which all comes from christianity btw. Like the work ethic is christian, the idea of life being split into institutions like marriage and work with social obligations, that's christian. And I just flat out, straight up reject those "christian" institutions, those "christian" norms, and that entire way of life. I'm anti traditionalist. And I just think, for all the progress have made over the past century, men need to make progress too. That means breaking the work ethic, that means more rights like financial abortion and more equal rulings in custody courts. And that means maybe women have to put up with some uncomfortable advances, at least in moderation (obviously there is SOME level where youre just harassing people and yeah, I'm not supporting anything that actually puts women in danger). And it means that maybe if they wanna find someone at all, they gotta adjust to the market a bit more instead of having unrealistic standards and then asking "where have all the good men gone?"

Again, for me, the big problem here is the double standards. I just feel like to accommodate these changes that have been made over the past half century to a century, that the social contract needs to change for men too. That's progress, not a regression. Again, I'm not regressive. I'm just not a traditionalist who wants to go back to the past. I just feel like feminism only did half the job and now men are taking on all of the social obligations and it's not working for us. And it's time to actually make something that works in the twenty-first century.