Perhaps you are confusing Athlon 64 with Athlon XP. The image shows an Athlon 64.
Even Athlon XP was initially fast, but then Intel, after switching to an improved 130 nm CMOS process, has succeeded to increase very fast the clock frequencies of Pentium 4, from the low 2.0 GHz until 3.06 GHz in 2002 and eventually 3.2 GHz in 2003. The clock frequency advantage became so large for Intel that Athlon XP was no longer competitive.
On the other hand, Athlon 64 was in a completely other class, at least when using a 64-bit operating system.
I had a couple of Athlon 64, a 2.4 GHz single-core and a 2.2 GHz dual-core. The 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 CPUs were no match for them.
With a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 I needed 2-3 days of non-stop work (24/24) for the compilation of a Linux distribution, while with Athlon 64 that was reduced to only a half day's work.
Before the introduction of Core Duo in mid 2006, for a couple of years all the available Intel CPUs that competed with Athlon 64 were not only extremely slow, but they were also extremely loud, suggesting an airplane takeoff (because the Intel 90 nm process was a failure, with huge leakage; the Core Duo that made Intel the best again was made in an improved 65 nm process).
The various variants of Athlon 64 became worse than what Intel offered only after mid 2006, though even much later there were many cases when they were cheap enough to provide better performance per dollar than Intel.
The image shown by the other poster is of an Athlon 64 made in 2005, at a time when it was the best CPU that could be obtained from any vendor.
Maybe I misremember, but the CPU I used was an Athlon 64 FX-62 I think and was around the time the Core2Duo was coming out. I wasn't quite a 2003 adopter so the gains were probably lost on me by then. :')
Then you probably remember right, because Athlon 64 FX-62 was launched in May 2006, only a month before Core 2 Duo.
At launch, Athlon 64 FX-62 was still much better than any Intel CPU, but only one month later it became obsolete.
The launch of Core 2 has been one of the greatest come backs of any company and it has started a time interval of more than a decade during which Intel has remained unchallenged, until the launch of AMD Zen.
You have just chosen one of the worst possible moments in which to buy an AMD CPU, when it must have had an inflated price, after a couple of years of total domination over Intel.
At least later, after it became obvious that Core 2 is better, AMD had to lower their prices accordingly, so you could still get a good deal.
Even Athlon XP was initially fast, but then Intel, after switching to an improved 130 nm CMOS process, has succeeded to increase very fast the clock frequencies of Pentium 4, from the low 2.0 GHz until 3.06 GHz in 2002 and eventually 3.2 GHz in 2003. The clock frequency advantage became so large for Intel that Athlon XP was no longer competitive.
On the other hand, Athlon 64 was in a completely other class, at least when using a 64-bit operating system.
I had a couple of Athlon 64, a 2.4 GHz single-core and a 2.2 GHz dual-core. The 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 CPUs were no match for them.
With a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 I needed 2-3 days of non-stop work (24/24) for the compilation of a Linux distribution, while with Athlon 64 that was reduced to only a half day's work.
Before the introduction of Core Duo in mid 2006, for a couple of years all the available Intel CPUs that competed with Athlon 64 were not only extremely slow, but they were also extremely loud, suggesting an airplane takeoff (because the Intel 90 nm process was a failure, with huge leakage; the Core Duo that made Intel the best again was made in an improved 65 nm process).
The various variants of Athlon 64 became worse than what Intel offered only after mid 2006, though even much later there were many cases when they were cheap enough to provide better performance per dollar than Intel.
The image shown by the other poster is of an Athlon 64 made in 2005, at a time when it was the best CPU that could be obtained from any vendor.