Early to mid 2000s, Athlon 64 and the Digital tech (as in DEC Alpha's EV6 bus) was where it was at, until Intel got back in front with Core 2. AMD got to define the 64-bit instruction set for x86 with Athlon 64. 2007 or so (13 years ago) was after the decisive swing back to Intel. I got a Q6600 in 2007 that I was using (in its final form in a NAS in the attic) until late last year.

I brushed off an old AMD motherboard. And did a quick CPU scout on Ebay to see what I'd need to pay for the greatest CPU of yesteryear. And for about a tenner, I could get AMD's best offering. But alas, it burnt many watts, and had barely any more grunt than my old Core2Duo in my aging laptop - so I doubt it is actually worth the bother.

I have hardware that is over a decade old, 'young' people scoff at anything over a few years old! But there's a sweet spot to be had where you can buy older, rather than ancient or new and save yourself a fortune.

That said, my latest console is a Gamecube.

Good ole Q6600. Move to that from a Pentium D. Didn't keep my dorm room as warm as the Pent-D, but ran everything 100% better...

yeah I got it when the core2duo was released, so apperantly in 2006 :)