Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
The list of thebest processorsis constantly shift , withAMD and Intelconstantly duking it out for a top slot . Although both company have released some tremendous CPUs , they ’ve put out plenty of duds as well . And some of those have make infamy among the worst CPU of all metre .
We dig through the archives of the past several ten of mainframe releases to discover the bad processors AMD and Intel have ever put out . Some , such as the Core i9 - 11900 K and FX-9590 , are relatively recent , while others date back to the earlier days of custom microcomputer . disregardless , each of these seven processors have realize a dishonorable status , be it for pricing , might , heat , or just plain former misfortunate performance .
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
Intel Core i9-11900K (2021)
This one is still fresh . Even with plenty of negative attending , the Core i9 - 11900 K does n’t get the ill will it truly deserve . During the sentence it released , Intel was very in public in a changeover period . Intel ’s current CEO Pat Gelsinger had take the reins just a month before the processor expel , and Intel was heavily focussed on itsnew processor road mapand 12th - gen Alder Lake architecture . The release of eleventh - gen chips felt like a required move — something Intel had to do just to say it had new processors out . They were sweep up under the carpet apace , but the Core i9 - 11900 K remains a standout stain on the intact coevals .
Gamer ’s Nexuscalled it “ pathetic ” on dismission , andeven TechRadar saidit “ feels like a desperate attempt to halt on to relevancy while [ Intel ] works on its dependable next whole step . ”Hardware Unboxedwent on to say it was the “ worst flagship Intel CPU mayhap ever . ” The reasons why are clear in hindsight . Intel was struggle to gain a foothold against AMD ’s Ryzen 5000 processors , and the Core i9 - 11900 K addressed that progeny in the worst path possible .
The Core i9 - 11900 K was the last outdoor stage forIntel ’s 14 nm unconscious process node , a process that Intel managed to squeeze bare improvements out of for intimately seven years . The Core i9 - 11900 K was a break point in time . It was using the dated process , but it actually featured less core than the late - generation Core i9 - 10900K. Intel shrivel its flagship from 10 cores to only eight , and it increased power demand . That did n’t omen well against AMD ’s rather efficient 12 - kernel Ryzen 9 5900 X and 16 - core Ryzen 9 5950X , both of which offer better performance at scurvy prices .
It was a dire situation . In reviews , the Core i9 - 10900 K often beat the Core i9 - 11900 K , and AMD ’s Ryzen parts ran away with performance . Intel could occasionally place a few redundant framing in games , but not enough to rationalise lower CPU performance overall and much higher power use of goods and services . Although Intel has had wad of stumbles over the years , there ’s no central processor that better encompasses the “ spend more , get less ” sentiment than the Core i9 - 11900K.
Although Intel quickly displace on to the much improvedCore i9 - 12900 KiB , you’re able to still sense the impact of 11th - gen central processor today . Up to that compass point , Intel was the undisputed securities industry drawing card , while today , it plays an underdog purpose . Intel often has to undersell AMD to stay on competitive . That shift happened right when the Core i9 - 11900 K was released .
AMD FX-9590 (2013)
You could pluck any of AMD ’s Bulldozer CPUs for this list , but there ’s no processor that encompasses just how disastrous the architecture was quite like the FX-9590 . standardised to Intel ’s eleventh - gen chipping , this was AMD ’s last hooray for Bulldozer before it would enclose the Zen architecture . The FX-9590 , when it released , was the first processor that achieved clock speeds of 5GHz out of the box — nooverclockingrequired . It was a Brobdingnagian step , but it came with the monolithic cost of power consumption .
Let ’s back up for a mo . The FX-9590 really habituate the Piledriver architecture , which is a revision of the original Bulldozer intention . Piledriver is n’t a huge melioration . It bushel some of the dreaded take with Bulldozer , particularly scheduling tasks on its massive array of thread . The FX-9590 took the more effective architecture and dial up the clock speeding as high as it could go , leave in a chip that consumed 220 watts .
That ’s mad even by today ’s criterion with CPUs like theCore i9 - 14900 K , but it was even bad in 2012 when the CPU released . Intel ’s 6th- and 7th - gen parts hung around 85W , while its 8th - gen silicon chip barely cracked 100W. The FX-9590 used the same AM3 + socket as much lower - ending AMD central processing unit at the time , too , despite requiring a flagship motherboard and dense liquid cooling setup to even function right .
account of freezing , insanely high temperatures , and even motherboard failures followed . Reviews at the timeproved that the FX-9590 was powerful , which was all the more telling considering how cheap it was compare to Intel ’s competing options . But once you factored in a massive cooling array and a high - end motherboard just to keep the processor from throttling itself , you would end up expend a caboodle more with AMD than you would with Intel . It did n’t help that AMD ’s lead over Intel was marginal in many cases , with Team Blue achieve interchangeable performance with half the office draw and core count .
The FX-9590 stands as a symbol of Bulldozer ’s failure as a whole , and it hit AMD where it hurt most . In 2012 , the year the central processing unit was unblock , AMD said it lost $ 1.18 billion .
Intel Core i7-7740X (2017)
Intel ’s Core i7 - 7740X is n’t necessarily a bad processor , but it sure is a perplexing one . Years ago , Intel maintained a leaning of X - series CPUs for a high - terminal screen background ( HEDT ) political program . The company has abandon HEDT for the last several generations — though AMD is keep it alive withThreadripper 7000 — but it used to be a cornerstone of Intel ’s lineup . The fellowship maintained two separate platforms . HEDT earmark for beefy motherboards with huge PCIe arrays and cutting - edge memory board support , as well as in high spirits core count CPUs , while the mainstream card offer more low-priced prices for everyone who did n’t need what X - series CPUs had to offer .
But then Intel tried to mix oil and water system . In an attempt to make its HEDT chopine more approachable — you would well drop $ 1,000 on a C.P.U. in the range normally — Intel introduced scurvy - end option called Kaby Lake - X. That lineup included the Core i5 - 7640X and Core i7 - 7740X , which were repackaged versions of of Intel ’s mainstream Core i5 - 7600 K and Core i7 - 7700 K , severally . The master difference is that they imbibe more power and were more expensive , with a miniscule bump to clock speed .
There was honestly no reason to bribe these parts . In parliamentary law to get a Kaby Lake - X chip , you would ask to invest in Intel ’s far more expensive HEDT platform . Intel also decide to rationalize the integrated graphics for these chips , all while charging a agiotage for them compared to their mainstream counterparts . The results spoke for themselves . Kitguru foundthat the Core i7 - 7740X offer almost identical performance to the Core i7 - 7700 K , just with higher mightiness haulage and a higher price . Even worse , the trashy Core i7 - 7700 K offered higher carrying out with a moderate overclock .
Despite the extra cost of Intel ’s X299 platform with the Core i7 - 7740X , the chip did n’t even have access code to the full turn of PCIe lanes that the weapons platform was subject of . It was instead limited to the same 16 usable on the Core i7 - 7700K. It ’s clear what Intel was attempt to accomplish with the Core i7 - 7740X by offering a more low-cost way to indue in the X299 platform with design to upgrade to a more expensive X - series CPU in the future . That plan fall flat on its face , however .
contribute to the fuss for Intel was AMD ’s Modern Ryzen chipping . Just a few month before the Core i7 - 7740X released , AMD introduced its fiercely competitive Ryzen 1000 C.P.U. , which offered higher core counting and a modest toll compare to the Intel competition . Rebranding the Core i7 - 7700 K on a more expensive political platform just came off as tone deaf at the metre . Intel was doing nothing to direct its slip position against AMD , and in fact , it was asking enthusiasts to spend even more .
AMD Phenom (2007)
Let me typeset the stage here . After gaining a competitory foothold against Intel with its K6 microarchitecture , AMD went on to relinquish its Athlon CPUs . The initial products under the Athlon brand were so impressive that AMD continues to use Athlon branding to this day , albeit for old Zen architecture . Athlon transformed AMD from a second - charge per unit processor Almighty to the competitory powerhouse it is today . By 2007 , after Intel free the first quad - core background mainframe , all eye were on Team Red for a reaction .
That response was Phenom , a mountain chain of quad - core CPUs that were designed to bite back against Intel ’s wildly popular Core 2 Quad range . It just turned out to be more of a nybble . Before ever releasing , Phenom was plagued with issue . Exact specification and prices were n’t concrete until the final hour , and AMD did n’t partake in any performance data ahead of dismission . The big subject was a hemipteran that was come across just before Phenom ’s release that could do a system to completely interlock up . AMD developed a workaround through the BIOS , which was constitute toreduce carrying into action by near to 20%on average .
And sure enough , thing were tough when the first Phenom processors eventually come . Even a midrange Intel Core 2 Quad could outpace the flagship Phenom 9900 in just about every applications programme , from general screen background use to productiveness to gaming . And to make issue worse , AMD was asking for more money compared to the Intel contest . AMD finally publish quadrangle - core CPUs with Phenom , but they just were n’t deserving recommending .
AnandTech add together upthe story nicely , writing : “ If you were looking for a changing of the precaution today , it ’s just not go to happen . ” In a late reexamination , reviewer Anand Lal Shimpi called Phenom “ the biggest dashing hopes AMD had ever left us with . ”
AMD finally regain ground with Phenom II , declare oneself more affordable quad - burden option to the midrange market , while Intel marched ahead with its newly strike Core i7 . For the window between Athlon and Phenom II , however , AMD was all but dead in the piss due to the dissatisfactory carrying out and high Mary Leontyne Price of the original Phenom flake .
Intel Pentium 4 Willamette (2001)
Intel ’s Pentium 4 range eventually turned into a success , becoming the first Intel chips to apply Hyper Threading and introducing the Extreme Edition branding to Intel ’s lineup , which it carried forward with several generations of X - series processors . That was not the display case when Pentium 4 was first introduced , however . The first contemporaries of chips , code - named Willamette , arrived half - parched and expensive . Not only were they beat by AMD ’s tawdry Athlon chips , but also Intel ’s own Pentium III options .
As we get into public presentation , keep in thinker that Pentium 4 was liberate in the era of individual - core CPUs . poser were separated by clock swiftness , not model number . The first two Pentium 4 CPUs were clocked at 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz . Even a Pentium III clocked at 1GHz grapple to outclass the the 1.4GHz Pentium 4 , while AMD ’s Thunderbird - establish Athlon 1.2GHz that was give up several months earlier make do tostomp both chip in productiveness benchmarks . Gaming result were even worse .
At the time these CPUs were liberate , they were project as a make-do . Intel released them assure high clock pelt along down the line , which Pentium 4 finally delivered . The range still ascertain its fair share of issues , however . The most urgent was Intel ’s determination to habituate RDRAM instead of DDR SDRAM . Due to cook up complexness , RDRAM was more expensive than DDR SDRAM . It was such a swelled concern that Intel actually bundle two sticks of RDRAM with each boxed Pentium 4 CPU .
The problem was n’t from enthusiast construct their own PCs , but rather from Intel ’s spouse who did n’t desire to foot the bill for RDRAM when DDR SDRAM was cheaper and bid better public presentation ( for setting , DDR SDRAM is still what is used today with standard like DDR4 and DDR5 ) . In the end , Intel was offering CPUs that were not only beaten by the competition , but they were even beaten by Intel ’s previous multiplication . And , to make matters bad , they were more expensive due to the exotic memory interface .
In the months that followed , Intel eventually free Pentium 4 potato chip with better clock speeds , as well as a proper DDR interface . The branding would eventually wrick into a success report with Hyper Threading and Extreme Edition , but for the first Pentium 4 CPUs that were free , the disappointment was real .
AMD E-240 (2011)
We ’re focus on desktop central processing unit for this list , but AMD ’s E-240 deserves a callout for how truly painful it really is . This is a single - burden mobile CPU that can reach 1.5GHz . Based on that , you might think it came out in the 2000s — Intel released the first Core Duo in laptops in 2006 — but you ’d be wrong . It came out in 2011 . Around this time , even the weak 2d - gen Intel Core i3 central processing unit came with two core and four threads .
There were never high prospect for the E-240 . It release on AMD ’s Brazos platform , which were low - power chips look to contend with Intel ’s Atom option . Even then , the E-240 was behind when it released . The criterion for Atom when the E-240 released was two cores , and even AMD ’s more knock-down options in this range , such as the E-300 and E-450 , sport two cores . The E-240 was focused on budget notebook computer , but even by that standard , it was days out of date when it released in 2011 .
To make matters worse , the chip was designed with a single - channel memory restrainer , bring in the already arduously slow stride of the splintering even worse . With only a single core and no support for multiple screw thread , the E-240 was force to wield tasks one at a clip . That had massive performance implications , with the E-240 falling up of 36 % behind the double - core E-350 . InNotebookCheck ’s reviewof the HP 635 , which used the E-240 , it wrote , “ we could only stimulate our head in regard to the pick of CPU . ”
Just because a processor is weak does n’t make it one of the worst of all time . There are plenty of AMD and Intel options build for buy - bin notebooks that are n’t herculean , but the E-240 is particularly awful for the prison term it was released . It seems the main role of this chip was to con unsuspicious purchaser into picking up silicon that was three or four years out of day of the month .
Intel Itanium (2001)
In today ’s climate , we all think of Intel as the champion of the x86 instruction set architecture ( ISA ) . Intel recrudesce x86 , and witha undulation of machinesthat currently use the Arm statement bent , Intel is waving its flag to leaven x86 is n’t dead . Things were n’t always this path , though . Intel , at one detail , wanted to stamp out its own tyke by developing a unexampled ISA . The Intel Itanium architecture , and the series of processors that came along with it , was a joint speculation between Intel and HP to grow an ISA capable of a 64 - bit address width , and it was a colossal failure .
You ’ve probably never heard of Itanium , and that ’s because it never really cracked into the mainstream grocery store . When Itanium first showed up on the scene , it wastalked about as a monolithic shiftin computing . It was Intel ’s response to PowerPC and its RISC educational activity set , offer a 64 - bit ISA with no hit to performance for 32 - bit applications . Or so Intel and HP said . In reality , the RISC competition was much faster , and a yr before Itanium was even released to the information nerve centre , AMD released its x86 - 64 ISA — an lengthiness of x86 that could run 64 - bit practical app and is still being used today .
Still , Itanium had a mickle of momentum behind it , so much so that Intel kept it alive for decades after 2001 , when the processors were first stick in . HP and Intelannounced their partnership in 1994 , and by July 2001 , when Itanium was release , massive brands like Compaq , IBM , Dell , and Hitachi had sign on to the next Intel and HP had image . Just a few years afterwards , near all support for Itanium had vanished , with Intel copying AMD ’s move by developing its own x86 - 64 extension service .
Despite never breaking into the mainstream market , Intel technically shipped Itanium chip shot until 2021 . And in 2011 , even after x86 - 64 had shew itself as the predominant ISA across the mainstream microcomputer market , Intelreaffirmed support for Itanium . The long living cycle of Itanium was n’t a error , though . In 2012,court documentsthat were unsealed as part of a lead between Oracle and HP worry Itanium CPU revealed that HP had paid Intel $ 690 million to keep on fabricate the chips from 2009 to 2017 . HP paid Intel to keep Itanium on life sentence support .
We never go out mainstream PC with Itanium processors , but the range still stands as one of the biggest failures in all of computing . It was originally billed as a gyration , but in the decades that keep an eye on Itanium ’s dismissal , Intel stay on to backpedal on the exfoliation of the ISA until it eventually fizzled out .
