Yeah Athlon 64 (technically beginning with socket 940 Opteron) was one of the most significant moments in CPU history. Utter and complete domination in every aspect right up to Conroe literally years later. If they hadn't botched Phenom I, and PhII was what they had to match Conroe, then it would have been an even longer period of strength.
This time around, we're looking at relatively equal per core strength by all reasonable accounts (APISAK up there is notoriously reliable), only with more cores, and more perf/$. VERY good stuff, but not mind boggling like AMD64 was 16 years ago.
Desktop is sadly not what it once was either, though I think AMD's real magic will be putting 7nm Zen2 to work in laptops. That will be a massive sea change. The total marketplace for $250+ desktop CPUs is utterly minescule by comparison. But Zen2 should be capable of blowing the doors off Intel mobile processors until they can kick their process tech into anything competitive. Because of how it's measured, Intel 10nm is basically TSMC 7nm. If they can't solve it, then they're simply incapable of keeping up.
In any case, it's great to see Intel's feet held to the fire, they've been lazy, greedy, uninspired, and even incompetent. Being an undisputed market leader ever since Conroe in 2006 has been absolutely terrible from a culture and leadership standpoint, and much of that has to do with how Corporatism works, most especially with publicly traded companies. When you're competing essentially against yourself, you have every incentive to stagnate, profiteer, and lose the plot. Hubris syndrome is real, and examples abound throughout business history, and nobody ever seems to get that it can happen to them as well.
AOL, MCI, 3DFX, Blackberry, Nokia, etc, etc. No matter how gargantuan or successful a company is, greed and lack of vision can blow it for them eventually. And market leaders are particularly susceptible to such forces. Apple is beginning to look a lot like mid 80s IBM. Fat, arrogant, uninspired, and greedy. Intel has practically worn that description as a mantra for 10+ years as well. But let's be clear, nothing says AMD won't go the same route as well. Good companies can thrive in the pack, it takes exceptional ones to lead AND not fall prey to the destructive power of being on top. It's only too easy to start marking prices up, making arbitrary decisions, or cutting R&D to fatten the pockets of the elite. When CEOs do a bad job, they get paid tens or even hundreds of millions as an exit package, so it's not like they even have much incentive to chase anything deeper than immediate share prices. But, I trust Lisa Su more than your typical BS artist who makes their way to such positions. May AMDs leadership be long and successful, for all of our sakes. I think even Intel will be better off for having someone remind them what competence and inspiration can look like in action.