Don't spin this around, if it's anti-consumer when Nvidia does it, warranting years of rhetoric and scorn, it's anti-consumer when AMD does it. Where is all the outrage of AMD going back on their word and "betraying the trust of the loyal Radeon customer"? It's simple, really, it's pure hypocrisy. You people never once cared for it being closed source software, you only ever cared that it was better and you couldn't use it.
Look, anyone who thinks that AMD is "pro-consumer" for altruistic reasons needs his head examined. AMD is a multi-billion-dollar globocorp, not your friend or mine. But it isn't incorrect to say that a disadvantaged market position frequently forces AMD to adopt a pro-consumer posture, at least relative to the competition. As far as the consumer is concerned, this might even seem like a distinction without a difference. That is, until AMD gains a market advantage.
All else being equal, open standards are better. There's nothing wrong with having rooted for FSR on that basis. And in fact, historically, open standards tend to win. VHS won out over Betamax. The CD won out over the Mini-Disc. The PC defeated the Macintosh. If we're discussing the GPU wars, Freesync was ultimately vindicated, and PhysX dwindled to obscurity.
(I still loved my Betamax, though.)
In this case, it just so happens that AMD's open standard couldn't compete with Nvidia's closed standard on image quality. But it got pretty close, and I'm glad they tried. Whatever else you want to say about the tech itself or the motivations behind its design, FSR represents a significant value add for consumers of all shapes or sizes. I wish AMD luck on their new proprietary tech, but they're going to need more than "we've got DLSS too" to move the needle substantially on their position in the GPU market.
Those cards were just under the heat of competition. And they had their merits which made them successful products.
And the CPU question... yes, for a while, until Intel chips lost momentum and they started charging $300 for a 6 core Ryzen 5. Then the 12400F happened and suddenly even motherboards that had "technical limitations" supported it all right quick alongside a nice price cut.
Exactly right.